


Dancing in the moonlight

by julinnnics



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bulimia, Depression, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Kane being a dad figure to Clarke, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Suicide, Minor Character Death, POV Bellamy, Sharing a Bed, but is mainly Bellamy i think, but there's also clarke's POV, lincoln and bellamy being friends yes i did that fuck off, the summary is DARK but this fic isn't THAT dark, we love bellamy and clarke equally, we'll see, well idk you'll wait and see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22190425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julinnnics/pseuds/julinnnics
Summary: “This is my place to sulk, Princess.” the nickname came out of nowhere, but it fit her perfectly. The girl turned her head to look at him, which showed him, her smudged mascara lines under her eyes, that really brought the colour of her eyes, which was a weird thing to think about when it was obvious she had been crying.“Last time I checked, Murphy lives alone.” she replied, raising an eyebrow at him as he sat next to her, there was only one sofa, and his legs were about to give up on him. Struggling to get through stairs filled with people almost fucking each other right here at the time, was a bit of a hard thing.Clarke and Bellamy have battled with their demons alone for almost their whole lives, so what'll happen when suddenly they're not going to need to go through everything on their own?
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 95





	1. Where the nightmares come out, insomnia comes along.

**Author's Note:**

> !!WARNING!!
> 
> this fic may contain mentions of suicide, bulimia and depression as it's said in the tags, if you don't feel comfortable reading such things, then this will not be your cup of tea.
> 
> if you want to scream, confess your love or just talk to me, you can find me on my tumblr: @aetheralsis

He sat up quickly, breathing heavily.  _ Another nightmare _ . Bellamy’s been having too much of them recently, waking up, catching his breath for nearly three minutes was frankly quite exhausting—seeing his mother’s dead body was  a everyday thing by now; her face pale, life sucked out of her, her hands and feet almost purple from the cold, her neck covered in yellow-blue bruises from the rope.

He tried everything, waking her up frantically, knowing it was a  _ dead _ end; she was dead for probably a couple of hours, but the thought of it just couldn’t reach him then.

He was seventeen, and frightened by the world, and what it has done to his loved ones. First it was his father leaving, then his mother. And Octavia, her face full of non-stopping tears when she first heard from him. 

It was almost six years ago, so he thought the nightmares were gone.

“Dude, are you okay?” Lincoln asked. His roommate, he forgot about him for a minute, and how thin the walls  were. “I heard you scream.”

“It was nothing, just a nightmare.” he shrugged it off, as he always did. Bellamy was never the one to pour his heart out, even if it was one of his closest friends. Lincoln’s worried expression didn’t fade from his face.

“If you want to talk about it, then you know where to find me.” and with a sigh, Lincoln left his room. Bellamy closed his eyes for a few seconds, taking deep breaths, just like the counsellor at Ark High School told him too, after having a panic attack in the bathroom.

He checked the clock, 2:09am. Bellamy knew he wouldn’t fall asleep anytime soon, so checking his phone was probably the only option he had left. There were a few messages from Monty, links to the newest football matches in the town, a text from Octavia checking in on him if he was okay, and a selfie with a koala.  _ At least Australia was treating her well _ , he thought.

He was never into social media, but having friends who were obsessed with it included him signing up to Snapchat, Facebook and of course, Instagram. He was just there to like Jasper’s stupid selfie’s after partying to hard at some frat parties, and Lincoln being the mom friend of the group.

The only pictures he had, were of his cactus plant, Dereck, and pictures taken with Octavia, were they were making goofy faces—nothing more was needed. There probably  was more pictures of him on Monty’s Twitter, his legendary, motivating and most importantly drunken speeches to Lincoln or Jasper, than actually on any of his social media platforms.

After two or more hours, his eyes started closing, and he took the chance to fall asleep again, positioning on his ratty mattress, hoping the nightmares wouldn’t find him.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Marcus Kane’s little 24h diner on the side of the road, was Clarke’s happy place. She felt more at home, then in her mother’s grand villa, filled with pictures in frames full of fake smiles, and awkward hugs. It wasn’t that she had a bad relationship with her mother, it was complicated.

At least, that was what she always has said to herself, or others. Abby had a stronger relationship with her intern, Raven Reyes, than her daughter, and that was saying a lot.

“Clarke! Haven’t seen you in ages, dear.” Marcus went around the bar, to pull her in a tight hug. She returned the hug, after seconds of consideration—she just didn’t like hugging, or cuddling in general with other people; it made her uncomfortable after a short while.

“Yeah, being a double major is kicking my ass, but I love it.” it was true, she always had wanted to go into the medicine field, purely on the fact that she could help people—art history was always her small getaway from the real world, getting lost in all the colours on the paintings in front of her that were, yet to be finished, was something so powerful and energizing she couldn’t put it into words.

“Well if you love it, then it’s all that matters.” he smiled warmly at her, making his way to the milkshake machine, knowing what she would order already.

When she went to Ark High, her only safe place was this diner, and Kane was kind enough to help her with her calculus homework, knowing how she hated it. Her dad and him were good friends, before Jake Griffin’s death, she would always come here with him, ordering two vanilla milkshakes and the wonderful pancakes this place offered. After it was just her, Abby, her mother, preferred more expensive restaurants, where the food on the place was never filling Clarke’s stomach.

Kane handed her the milkshake, and went to the kitchen. Clarke sat on of the red sofas, right next to the window. The diner itself was kind of a replica of  an 70’s/80’s diner, where kids after school would go and get waffles especially after a hard day. She liked it that way.

She checked her phone, 8% battery,  _ great _ . Not even caring about the time (2:30am), she threw it into her purse, looking out of the window.

“Here you go, the famous pancakes. My pops secret recipe.” he smiled, and Clarke sighed at the sight of them—she loved this too much for her own good, her dad used to joke how her body would only consist of the pancakes, and she would correct him how it wasn’t scientifically possible, bragging about her biology knowledge; she was a smartass when she was a child.

She didn’t live with her mother, but thanksgiving was around the corner, and as complicated the relationship between them has been, Clarke knew that it was also a close date to her father’s anniversary and she would never leave her mother on that day;  so she stayed with her. She only lived seven hours from here, the closest college she could find that fit her expectations and wasn't filled with arrogant rich kids even though she was one of them, and one of the best in the state, but train hotel prices for a couple of day were expensive, so staying with her mother was unfortunately the cheapest option.

She finished her pancakes, and with a mouthful of them, grinned at Kane who was watching her with amusement on his face.

When she handed him the plate, and paid he sighed. “It’s good, to see you... eat.” he half-whispered, then a full of panic face started creeping up on him, and Clarke knew what it was about.

“It’s fine, and yeah it is. I’m finally healthy, well, if you could call mass eating pancakes healthy.” she answered, smiling at him, and he returned the smile.

After her father’s death, when she was a junior in Highschool, and constant fights with her mother, she got into the wrong crowd and groups of people—partying the whole night, and then throwing up the next morning as quite as she could to not wake Abby up. 

Then one day, the realization hit her, that her father was actually dead. That he wouldn’t come up—Clarke stopped eating, she threw up the food after every lunch or dinner, her body became slimmer to the point when one day she woke up in a hospital bed, connected to wires and other stuff, she knew she needed to get a grip and start working on herself.

It didn’t help that her mother was at every corner, driving her to and from school, the teachers looking at her with pitying looks, but secretly seeing if she wasn’t throwing up anywhere, that was the time Kane’s diner became her safe place, the only place she could go and not be followed anyone to the toilet.

Bulimia didn’t disappear quickly; it was a long process and it sometimes still tempted her to just go and throw everything out of her system, but she knew it could kill her, her body started going back to looking at what someone would call ‘healthy’ around her first year of college.

She started working out, every time she had the urge to throw up, she would go to the gym and work herself that she was sweating all over the place, making the people at the gym look bad, of how she would beat the shit out of the  mannequin in the corner.

After what felt like minutes, but was probably hours, looking at the sun already rising up, Clarke stood up, smiling at Kane, who was washing the table, and waving a hand in goodbye.

Maybe her sleeping schedule was messed up, but spending a night like this, was better than throwing up in the toilet, or partying until she blacked out, and didn’t remember where or how she got herself on a rooftop of a building, yes it happened.

This was a good start to the day, and maybe, just maybe she was ready to face her mother once more.


	2. Everyone needs silence.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The meeting of our favorite idiots!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't edited so just try to ignore any mistakes

After what felt like eternity, Bellamy finally forced himself to get out of bed and to the kitchen, where his roommate was sitting on one of the chairs with a pity look on his face—Bellamy hated it. He never accustomed to the idea of someone truly caring about him, after his sister moving across the world away from saying, and leaving him alone he never once trusted anyone. 

Lincoln wasn’t any different, sure, he was probably his closest friend in this town, or even world, but it didn’t change that Bellamy had probably serious abandonment-issues because of people constantly leaving him behind. 

“Hey man.” Lincoln said, smiling lightly. Bellamy responded with a silent ‘Hi’. “So there’s this party, at Murphy’s. Tonight.” 

“No.” was Bellamy’s immediate response, he didn’t have time for yet another one of Murphy’s ‘legendary and iconic’ parties as he himself has said it. 

After what felt like a few minutes, Lincoln snapped. “We’re worried about you.” 

“What’s there to worry about? I’m fine.” he muttered. 

“Other than going to classes and your job, you don’t leave this apartment, Bellamy. It was alright before, you went to bars to pick up chicks and dudes, you partied with us, you got drunk with us. And now the only thing I hear from you is either screams when you sleep, or saying how you’re totally fine, but you’re not!” 

Bellamy was never the first one to start fights with anyone, but this was his breaking point. “And what do you want me to say? That I don’t give a fuck about any of you, and the company of a book I found is a lot better than Murphy and you? Because yeah, it’s true.” 

“Wow.” Lincoln chuckled sarcastically. “The party starts at 7pm, you can come or not, like I give a shit.” he murmured, and then retreated back to his room, making sure Bellamy heard the door slam. 

This was definitely not what Bellamy had when he thought this morning was probably going to suck. 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- 

Classes went by quickly, as he only had Classics and pre-history ones. Looking back at how the morning in his apartment went with Lincoln, Bellamy decided to go to the library and find new books that weren’t already read by him—plus, there was almost never anyone at the library. By Friday, what almost every student had in mind was getting drunk until they blacked out; that was at least what Bellamy was seeing every time he looked out of his small balcony (if you could call a fire escape that), seeing drunken guys shouting their never-ending love about some girl. 

Pathetic. 

Or, it was what people called fun these days, he wasn’t sure anymore. 

Since the nightmares and Octavia not responding to any of his calls or messages, Bellamy stopped going out. 

“Fuck.” he murmured, when he saw the sign at the libraries doors ‘closed’. _Who closed a library this early?_ With a deep sigh, and a round of rolling his eyes as if the librarian could see his visual disappointment, he turned around and went towards his apartment. 

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ 

“You’re going to the party, you motherfucker.” an angry Murphy came right into his face, throwing a black t-shirt on his face. “And I don’t care if you’re too tired, you’re coming with us and you’re going to pick up a hot chick and go home with her.” 

“Jesus.” Bellamy muttered, dropping his bag on the floor, taking of his jacket and shoes—him and Lincoln decided to start the no-shoes-allowed rule at their apartment, after Murphy putting his dirty booths on their couch. 

“I’ve heard there’s going to be Roma and Bree at the party, last time I’ve heard you had a thing with both of them.” Murphy wiggled his eyebrows at him, which earned him a disgusted look from him. 

“It was freshman year, and that was me fucking out all of my problems from my system, I was a dumbass.” he replied, which _earned him_ a slap on the back of his head, which quite frankly hurt. “Ow, dude!” 

“It was a better method than what you are doing now.” Murphy said, raising his right eyebrow. 

After a minute of silence, Bellamy gave in. “Fuck, okay. I’m going to go to your stupid party, but don’t force me to pick up random woman.” he put his hands up in surrender. 

“Good man.” Murphy patted his hair. 

“I’m not a dog.” he snapped. Murphy laughed, and told him to hurry up, and get dressed. It wasn’t even 6:30pm... 

“Yeah, well, it’s a twenty-minute drive to my place, without the traffic and we need to clean up.” Murphy replied. 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- 

After five hours, the party was filled with 80% of people Bellamy never met, and loud, too loud, but he promised Murphy to stay to at least 12am. There was a couple of times when Bree asked him to dance, or do other things, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t in the mood for hooking up with anyone, so it became quite annoying when Roma started being really insistent on having a drink with him, at which he always replied he was the driver tonight, so he couldn’t drink. 

He saw Murphy shoving his tongue down Emori’s throat, which was nauseating to look at, and then there was Lincoln, sitting in the corner with a beautiful brunette, with hair larger than a birds nest, but she was clearly Lincoln’s type. 

Half of the people were dancing everywhere they could, and drinking at the same time insane amounts of alcohol. There was also a large amount of people making out in every corner there was, so Bellamy was left to go upstairs, and probably to his balcony, where he could (hopefully) find no one. 

He promised to stay at the party, but not socialize with people. 

To his bad luck, there was already someone at the balcony, sitting cross legged on one of the huge sofa, that was probably meant for the indoors, than the outdoors, but Bellamy wasn’t the one to judge. She was blonde, and wearing a bit too big of a blouse on top of her small, black dress. 

“This is my place to sulk, Princess.” the nicknames came out of nowhere, but it fit her perfectly. The girl turned her head to look at him, which showed him smudged mascara lines under her eyes, that really brought the color of her eyes. 

“Last time I checked, Murphy lives alone.” she replied, raising an eyebrow at him as he sat next to her, there was only one sofa, and his legs were about to give up on him. Struggling to get through stairs filled with people almost fucking each other right here at the time, was a bit of a hard thing. 

“I’m a friend of Murphy’s. A close one, and I usually am here when I’m forced to go to another one of his parties.” he scoffed silently to himself. 

“I’m not going to move if that’s what you’re asking for.” she prodded, and he knew from the look in her eyes, that she was nowhere near giving up the place just for himself. 

“Well, then it leaves us in a unwanted company, huh.” 

“If you wouldn’t be an asshole from the start, then maybe the company would be pleasant.” she muttered, and he chuckled—he was bad at making first impressions to say the least. “Anyway, if you don’t talk then we’re good.” she finished. 

“Bad day?” Bellamy asked, ignoring her last sentence completely because she seemed, like the person that hated pouring her heart out to strangers, but did anyways. 

She huffed, loudly, and rolled her eyes. “What did I just say?” 

“I’m an asshole what did you expect?” he deadpanned, at which the blonde turned away from him on the couch. “Don’t be like that.” he pouted, knowing she couldn’t see him, but yet. 

The girl besides him shot him a glare, and turned to look at Murphy’s small backyard, that bastard got really lucky to inherit this house after his grandmother passed away; it wasn’t the biggest Bellamy has ever seen, but it was decent, with a backyard, which was filled with random chairs and hammocks, it looked quit cosy and like a shop with old furniture. 

He decided to actually shut up, and enjoy the warm weather as much as he could, he didn’t want to disturb the person on his right, as she’s clearly was feeling dislike towards him from the very beginning, maybe it was fault, maybe not. 

In the end it was her, who broke the silence. “Shouldn’t you be down there, finding new girls to hook up with.” she asked, with a tone, Bellamy couldn’t quite put his finger on—it was shaming him in a way, but she also looked, like she was blushing, wait was she blushing, or was it just cold. 

“The old me would.” he sighed, closing his eyes, resting his head on the back of the couch. 

“The old you?” she mocked him, with a quiet laugh. “Is it what every guy says after being rejected, by too many girls, or?” 

“I was never rejected by anyone, thank you very much.” he narrowed his eyes at her, who was bruising his ego big time. “I usually don’t go to parties anymore, Murphy forced me to.” 

After a few seconds of pure silence. “Sure.” she whispered, with a amused face, looking straight at him. 

Bellamy scoffed. “Is it _so hard_ to believe, that I don’t like going to parties?” 

“Yeah.” she said, full honesty. “You just seem, like the guy who has hoards of girls around him at every party, not that I’m judging or anything.” 

“Or anything.” 

She laughed, her voice raspy. “I’m Clarke.” she said, quietly. 

“I prefer Princess.” he said, at which she tried to slap his shoulder, but he stopped her right before doing it. “Clarke.” he tested her name on his lips, it sounded right. “I’m Bellamy.” she pulled her hand from his grasp, moving further into the sofa. 

“I prefer asshole.” she remarked, at which he chuckled. 

They didn’t talk for the rest of the evening, trying to ignore the screaming guys, singing to the lyrics of some Katy Perry song, enjoying the not so cloudy sky. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, quite the opposite, it was soothing, and calming. He really didn’t have anything to talk to the girl, Clarke, and she seemed to be in a worse mood than him, so she probably just needed silence. Bellamy knew those moments, all too well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ngl i wanted to go with an enemies to lovers thing in this fic, BUT I JUST CANT OKAY? still, they don't become sudden friends from that one meeting, but it doesn't mean that they're enemies either.
> 
> Either way, this fic is probably going to have shit ton of twists so get along for the ride of a rollercoaster, because i'm writing this shit as i go.
> 
> If you have any thought about how the next chapters are going to be about, just comment it down bellow, I LOVE hearing conspiracy theories.


	3. Addiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for being inactive!! School has been hard on me for weeks, and I've writing, and deleting, and re-writing, and then deleting this chapter constantly, because I didn't find it good, nor interesting-- so it took a while, but here we are <3 more info is in the end notes :))

Waking up in your own bed, in your own apartment, without a huge hangover was the best feeling Clarke could ever have—knowing as the party wasn’t as ‘legendary’ as Murphy dubbed it, which she was thankful for, caused her to actually call an Uber, and go home at a reasonable hour, if 3:43am was a reasonable hours, which it was for her. 

The only thing she remembered, other than Finn creepily following her everywhere at the party, acting as if they were friends, maybe even more, which they obviously weren’t (if seeing him with another woman in bed was anything to go by), she found herself on Murphy’s balcony, in silence. 

That was until a obnoxious, mop of a hair guy sat next to her, grumbling something about this being his place to sulk, which she, quite frankly, didn’t care about. They got into a small argument, which resulted in the two of them sitting there in silence at the end. She didn’t even spare as much as a glance in his direction when she stood up, and walked away to call an Uber—he didn’t do anything either. 

After breakfast, she looked up at her phone, that was filled with different sorts of notifications—there was a couple of Snaps from Monty and Jasper, probably them recording a video of how to make ‘moonshine’ as they called it, while being drunk. There was a couple of text messages, most of them from her mother asking when she was coming back for Thanksgiving. 

But when she looked a bit further, at exactly 5:06am, an Instagram notification was shown. Bellamy_Blake006 followed you. Her eyes widened a bit in shock. At first it she was surprise that he even bothered to find her Instagram, which maybe was a sign that he wanted her nudes or something, and yeah, it was a no, thank you from her, and then it was confusion as to how he even found her, only knowing her name. Instead of overthinking, she hit the follow button on his profile. 

She put her phone down, going to take a shower, because even though she drank only half of a beer can, didn’t mean she didn’t stink. 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- 

Bellamy woke up tired, when he checked his phone, realizing he only slept two hours, wasn’t a good thing, seeing as he had work today at the local bar in an hour no less. He saw a couple of notifications, mostly of Jasper confessing his undying love to him via text messages, which most of them were unreadable, but there was another one from Instagram. 

Cgriffins followed you. 

Shit. So she noticed him following her. 

At first he curiously asked about her to Murphy, at which he handed him his phone with her Instagram profile, and went back to making out with Emori. He didn’t think when he looked her up on his own phone, the follow was just there, and after seeing how aesthetically pleasing her profile was, he was destined to hit it. 

Destined? Jesus Christ, the sleep deprivation was hitting him hard. 

He showered, then ate his oatmeal, that seemed to be the only thing that was quick to make, seeing as he had 15 minutes until his shift at the bar started. He didn’t see Lincoln coming out of his room, but he saw the huge-hair girl tip toeing to the exit, he muttered a goodbye, which startled her, causing her to run out of the apartment—some people really hated the walk of shame. 

He scribbled as small message to Lincoln, that said he was at work, on a sticky note, and put it on the fridge—he knew very well, that his friends’ phone was either dead or at Murphy’s house, laying somewhere, forgotten, so it was better to with the old-school sticky note way. 

He quickly got to work, earning him a scowl from the manager, Anya, at which he threw a apologetic smile; he always did. He almost never was late to work, seeing as he desperately needed the money—working two part-time jobs was making his ends meet at least. It wasn’t easy, seeing as he was in college still. 

It wasn’t until his first 10 minute break, that he got another Instagram notification from Clarke, he smirked, she probably wanted to hang out or something, seeing as he was such a great company last and first time they met, he ironically thought to himself. In the end, it was nothing like that. 

[Cgriffins] 10:28am: 1. you’re either a stalker, that’s going to be obsessed with me, or, 2. you want me to send nudes to you, which, no, thank you. 

He let out a full, belly laugh at her theories about him, but before her could respond, he got another text from her. 

[Cgriffins] 10:29am: and the 006 at the end of ur @? Where you a fan of James Bond when you were little, but then thought that 007 was too obvious so you went with 006? 

[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:29am: 1. I don’t want ur nudes, and I’m not a stalker. Murphy shoved me his phone in my face with your profile on it. 2. I was James Bond fan, until it got racist, and the 006 was random, Princess. 

[Cgriffins] 10:31am: Well, it still doesn’t make me not believe you’re some kind of serial killer. 

[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:31am: and why would you think that? I could even hurt a fly. 

He could hear her scoff, when she read his text, but truth to be told he didn’t care. 

[Cgriffins] 10:35am: yeah, fat chance. There’s still no explanation for stalking me. 

[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:36am: Murphy gave me your Instagram, remember? 

[Cgriffins] 10:36am: Yeah, but liking one of my posts from two years ago comes into the stalker territory. 

Oh shit, he did that? Stupid idiot, he was the most idiotic idiot there was—he didn’t know what to type back, as she now saw him as a creep, and a stalker which were the last things he’s ever wanted her to think of him. Those were probably the last things anyone would want a girl they wanted to befriend to think of them. 

[Cgriffins] 10:37am: Let’s meet up, and I’ll help you how to be creepy, without the person you stalk knowing you’re creepy. Kane’s diner @ 8pm. Be there, or not, idc. 

[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:37am: You just invited me to meet with you, but you don’t care? 

[Cgriffins] 10:37am: What I care about the most are the pancakes there. Still, I would appreciate if you didn’t leave me hanging. 

[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:37am: Inviting your (definitely not) stalker to hang out... 

[Cgriffins] 10:38am: yeah, yeah, shut up. 

“Breaks over, Blake. Get back here.” Wick, one of his co-workers shouted from the inside, which broke him out of his smiling bubble. He smiled, looking at his phone once, and went back to the bar. 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- 

It wasn’t that he was counting the time until their meeting, they day went by as all his days went—boring, and plain. The shift ended at 4pm, he went back to his apartment, seeing as his roommate was somewhere else, as always. 

Knowing Lincoln, he probably was ‘running errands’, which was a way of him saying he was meeting up with one of his hook ups—he didn’t judge him, because he used to do that back in freshman or sophomore years, which were one of his years that he regretted the most, seeing as most of the woman that he was with hated him. To be fair, he did say that he never wanted to pursue a relationship with neither of them. 

He didn’t even realize it was 7:40pm, to deep into his book, but he was never the type of guys to leave a girl hanging, and he really wanted to meet up with her. 

The drive to Kane’s diner was uneventful, he has been there a couple of times, seeing as it had the only pancakes that weren’t too lumpy, and the owner was one of the nicest people in this small town. When he got inside, an elderly woman smiled warmly at him, and he took a seat. 

8:01pm, and Clarke wasn’t here yet, which was surprising, she wanted to meet up with him, but didn’t seem to want to show up. He was patient, so he waited. 

By 8:14pm, she finally stepped into the diner, smiling tiredly at him—she was wearing a knee length cardigan, wrapping it tightly around, it didn’t seem to be this warm outside, so he was kind of shocked to see her wear only a cardigan, black t-shirt and jeans didn’t seem too warm. 

“Hey.” she panted, smiling widely. “I am so sorry I’m this late. My mother ignores me the whole year, and the day I need to meet my stalker wannabe, she seems to want to talk about Thanksgiving.” she exclaimed. 

“It’s okay.” he said. “I already ordered some pancakes.” 

“Yeah, I’m starving so I’m going to order.” she went to the woman, which smile widened immediately after seeing her. They seemed to talk for a few minutes, and then the elderly woman turned to look at him, winking at her. He heard her scoff, and turn back to their table. 

She crossed her arms, sitting back. “So, stalker guy, how--” 

“You know my name.” he sighed, cocking an eyebrow at her. 

“Bellamy,” she rolled her eyes. “How have you been?” she asked, uncrossing her arms when a waitress came up to them with her Coca-Cola. 

“Good.” he said. “And how was your--” 

“This is shitty.” she muttered, cutting him off. “I’m sorry, I just. I’m really bad at this whole thing.” 

“You mean, being nice to people?” he asked, smirking, which earned him a kick under the table from her. The waitress came back, this time with her pancakes, smiling widely at the both of them—Clarke murmured a ‘thanks’, smiling back and took the plate. 

“I love this.” she muttered, looking at the food in front of her. The corners of Bellamy’s lips tugged upwards. “I used to come here everyday. Now that classes have started, I’m trying to start having healthy coping mechanisms and instead of eating masses of pancakes, trying yoga.” she giggled to herself, probably at how ridiculous it sounded. 

“Masses of pancakes?” he asked, with a confused look. 

“Yeah, I’m obsessed with pancakes. It kind of become an addiction.” she said. 

“You must have really high metabolism.” he muttered, and Clarke scrunched up her face. “I- I mean you just don’t look like a person who eats pancakes everyday.” he said, this time him scrunching his face, because it was probably the most weird and not making sense at all thing he’s every said. 

“I go to the gym a lot.” she said. “Another coping mechanism, huh.” she remarked. “Anyways, you look like a guy who works out daily.” she said, and Bellamy tried to ignore the sudden change of topic. 

“Yeah, you could say it’s a coping mechanism of mine as well.” he said, and Clarke hummed in agreement. 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ 

The next few days came by quickly, he and Clarke texted a couple of times during the week, which was how normal friends did, but being seeing as they were friendly at their second meeting, which was a huge contrast to their first one that was a small disaster at the first impressions thing. She sent him memes, and complained about politics, while he texted her weird history facts, at which she surprisingly didn’t reply with him being boring. 

They didn’t meet each other in the week, both too busy with classes and work. Bellamy had a lot on his plate with Octavia not responding to his texts once again, probably punishing him for something once again, that probably wasn’t his fault. He complained to Wick, about him showing up late at work, which was almost a daily occurrence. 

He went once to the diner, subconsciously doing the thing Clarke told him especially that she tried to stop doing, and it did help. He met the owner—Marcus Kane, a middle-aged guy, that probably loved the pancakes even more than Clarke. For some reason he felt at home there, better than at his apartment, where he could find Lincoln’s hook-ups moans, and the bedframe hitting the walls, while he tried to study for finals. 

“Hey.” Lincoln said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.” he remarked. 

“I was busy.” he answered. 

“With someone, or?” he wiggled his eyebrows at him. 

“With the Roman Empire.” Bellamy deadpanned, getting annoyed how everything needed to be sexual for Lincoln. He loved his friend, he really did, but it was getting tiring. 

“Oh, come on. I’ve heard that you’ve asked Murphy about a chick. What was her name? Clarissa? Claire?” 

“Clarke. She’s a friend.” he answered. 

“Sure.” Lincoln said, looking unconvinced. The thing with him always thinking about anything sexual? Yeah, that was a really common thing. Bellamy only shook his head, not bothering to answer him, because he knew it would be unnecessary, seeing as he wouldn’t stop with his constant innuendos. “Bellamy Blake doesn’t make female friends. Everyone knows that.” 

“I can, and I did.” he said stubbornly. “Look, she’s only a friend, and she’ll stay that way.” 

“Uh huh.” Lincoln looked down at the ground, shaking his head slightly. “Tell me one woman you’ve been friends with, without anything sexual involved.” 

“Easy, Gina.” Bellamy looked up at him proudly. 

“You hooked up with her when you were drunk, and when she found out you didn’t remember the night, and wasn’t into her, she stopped coming around.” Lincoln said. “Next.” 

“Alright, Bree.” 

“Come on, dude. She has bedroom eyes, every time we hang out at Murphy’s bar.” 

“Doesn’t mean anything has happened between us.” He said, the smartass he was—he never had sex with Bree, or not that he remembered of. 

“You fingered her at a pub, and then blacked out not even ten minutes after.” Lincoln replied—and oh fuck, he was probably the king of making the worst decisions while drunk, and he didn’t even know that thing with Bree until now. 

“I’ve changed.” he said, and Lincoln huffed out a laugh. “I’m serious. And she’s never going to be more than a platonic friend, got it?” 

His friend raised both of his hands, holding back laughter. “Yes sir, yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like this chapter, loves <3 I know and I'm once again sorry for not updating this fic. The past couple of weeks have been a mess with school and my private life, and now that every school in my country has closed for the next two weeks, so I'm going to try to maybe finish this fic, or at least post more.
> 
> Anyways, this chapter kind of touches on the topic of Clarke hiding her past disorder from Bellamy, which is totally understandable, knowing that they're not exactly close friends in the beginning. Also, Lincoln being kind of a womanizer is so ooc for him, but I needed someone to fit the role of the fuck boy friend of Bellamy that also connects to Octavia (you'll know why in later chapters) and Lincoln was perfect for that.


	4. Bed sharing (not quite)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These idiots hanging out some more, and the fake dating trope arises *giggles like a five year old*

“Where have you been?” Raven asked.

“At the library.” She answered, not bothering to add anything  further. “How did you get in?”

“You gave me a key, dumbass.” She replied, and Clarke’s eyebrows furrowed. “Well... your mom gave me the key.”

Clarke groaned.

“She’s trying to take care of you.”

At that she scoffed—sending her intern to check up on her was one way to say that she ‘cared’ for her own daughter. Sure, she and Raven were friends at some level, but not to that point that she felt comfortable when she was with her, knowing that if she even complained about the smallest thing, her mother would know.

“Great, I’m doing fine. Now can you go? I have a lot of work to do.” Clarke replied, making her way to her bedroom, ignoring Raven’s protests. She was too tired to deal with that now.  Plus the fact that Mrs. Green, her organic chemistry professor assigned a 3,000+ word essay for the next week and her work hours being crazy, now that Luna left was enough for her.

“You know you can talk to me.” Raven pushed through the doors of her bedroom, sitting on the bed. She wasn’t going to let go. “We’re friends, and that’s what friends do.”

“Raven, look--”

“No, Clarke. We’ve been through this before. You can tell me anything.”

“ So you can then tell everything that I ‘confessed’ to you to my mother? Let’s be honest here, Raven.” Clarke snapped, getting more and more annoyed. She saw her phone light up with Bellamy’s name being the first notification—another dumb history fact of his.

[ bELOMI ] 7:01pm: Turkeys were once worshipped like gods. T U R K E Y S.

She smiled lightly, ignoring Raven’s another rant on how she could rely on her and trust her.

[ Griffindor ] 7:01pm: By the Mayan people, right? Now they’re America’s  favorite meal for thanksgiving.

[ bELOMI ] 7:02pm: Americans destroy everything they see

[ Griffindor ] 7:02pm: True. 

[ bELOMI ] 7:04pm: What’s up?

[ Griffindor ] 7:05: Currently being interrogated by  my moms intern, who conveniently got a key to my apartment. Life’s great. Wbu?

[ bELOMI ] 7:06PM: Want me to help with that?

“Clarke? Hello?” Raven waved in front of her face. “You’re not even listening to me. Your whole face is in that phone.”

“You start to sound like my mother, Jesus.” Clarke sighed, putting the phone away, at which Raven gave her a smirk. “That was not a compliment.”

“Anyways, I’m ordering something.” Raven said, making her way to her kitchen, where she had all the number written on sticky notes, of the nearest restaurants. She knew that if she’d order the food, then her chances of getting the girl out of her apartment would go down to 10% or even lower.

She grabbed her phone.

[ Griffindor ] 7:11pm: Yes please. Come over.

She sent him her location, and in response he texted ‘ omw ’ and the status on messenger when from active, to active 1 minute ago. Clarke sighed, praying that he would get here in time. And she wouldn’t need to act all nice around Raven for the rest of the night. 

Then she felt the alarm go off in her head—she just gave, a guy whom she met two times for god’s sake, her location, not even thinking twice before just sending it his way. But then she remembered how he never seemed weird, other than how he found her Instagram, but that got resolved quickly when he explained everything to her, not that it was a serious thing, they followed the same people, sooner or later they would’ve  get to know each other. And the fact that they texted even more so, with every day coming its way.

She calmed herself down, trying not to be her paranoid self and went to the kitchen, where Raven was debating between Thai and Italian.

“Raven, look. I know that my mom cares for me, and that’s why she sent you here, but I really don’t need a babysitter.” she explained, seeing as that would be the only way to take her mind off ordering.

“I know you don’t need a babysitter, but remember the last time you ignore everyone?” she asked, and right. She was one of the not so many people that actually knew the whole story about her disorder.

“I’m not, like that anymore. Everything is actually better, so yeah, I forgot to check in with my mom and you, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do that again.”

“The last time something like that happened, you ended up in a hospital.” Raven exclaimed, her eyes getting teary.

“I know.” She reassured her, wrapping her arms around her lightly. “But I’m an adult, I need to live on my own, without the thought that if I don’t check in with at least one of you, I’ll find you on my couch the next day.”

“Would it hurt to send me a text, or your mom about you being okay at least?” she asked, more like whispered.

“I need space, Raven.” she said, getting impatient with her. It wasn’t that Clarke was a rude person, not accepting help when it was needed, but it got exhausting how everyone that knew about the things she went through in High school, and then at the beginning of college were walking on egg shells around her, treating her like some basket case.

Clarke kept her mind away, for what felt like eternity when she heard a light knock on her door.

When she opened it, she found Bellamy, playing with his fingers, and if she didn’t know  better she’d say he was nervous. “Hi.” he said, grinning.

“Hey.”

“Clarke, who is that?” Raven shouted from the couch, and she rolled her eyes, Bellamy shot her a look, asking if that was the  girl they were texting about before, and she nodded, rolling her eyes once again.

“Her boyfriend.” he shouted back, at which Clarke’s eyes widened. _ Her boyfriend _ ? Not a study partner, or a friend asking for help? He really needed to go with the boyfriend thing? Bellamy gave her smirk, pushing her slightly to the side, before making his way into the apartment.

When Raven came into the view, Bellamy turned around, grabbing Clarke by the waist, and kissing her cheek, and honestly—she wasn’t disappointed, looking at Raven’s shocked face, almost dropping her water bottle.

“Oh? Clarke never said anything about having a boyfriend.” she remarked, looking between the two of them.

“We’ve been keeping it a secret for quite some time. Right, babe?” he turned to look at her, the blush on his cheeks was unmistakable, he was as nervous as she, probably uncomfortable too.

“Y- yeah.” she nodded, smiling a little bit too widely. She was really bad at his.

A minute of silence put herself between the three of them. “Uh, so I’m just going to... go.” she gestured for the door. “See you, Clarke.” and then she bolted from her apartment.

Now the real awkwardness started—Bellamy wasn’t looking at her, but she could see that he was deciding what to do, looking back and forth between the couch and the kitchen, never her. Clarke on her part did nothing, but look at his face, still in shock, but decided to push all the awkwardness away, and joke.

“Babe?” she asked, trying to stop herself from giggling like a  fifteen year old . Bellamy looked apologetically, at the top of her head, but avoiding her eyes.

He chuckled. “Sorry, when I got  here I thought that the best way to get her out of your hair, would be to act like a boyfriend who wanted to spend some alone time with his girlfriend.” he replied, his cheeks getting  more red , with every word.

“Do you want anything to drink... Honey?” she was at the verge of laughing, but stopped herself.

“Oh, shut up.” He grumbled, and the both of them started full on cackling in the hallway. “I’m never going to help you with anything.”

“Sure.” she replied, still laughing. “But for real, I’m thirsty.” she went to the kitchen, pouring one glass of water for her, and  a orange juice for him, remembering that he once said that it was the best thing that some guy names C. D. Atkins invented. When she came back, she saw him already sitting on the couch, looking through her Netflix account. “I would say, make yourself at home, but you already did.” she muttered.

“Sorry, I just saw this.” He gestured at some historical documentary. “And needed to click it, it was stronger than me.”

“I was going to watch it, but then I found Raven, and all my plans went to shit.” she replied.

“Is she an annoying friend? Or an ex-girlfriend that acts as if you two are friends still.”

“None of the above.” she answered. “And how did you even think about the latter one?” she asked, turning to him.

“Talking from experience.” he muttered. “So who is she, if not a friend, huh.”

“She’s  my moms intern, and when I didn’t check in for the past couple of days with her, my paranoid mother thought something was wrong and send her to my apartment.” she explained.

“You’re an adult, and your mom still checks up on you? Damn.” he said.

“Yeah.” she sighed.

They didn’t talk for the rest of the documentary, other than Bellamy pointing out the small inaccuracies, that made his blood boil for some reason. Surprisingly he wasn’t that much of an asshole as she thought he was.

“People  _ still _ believe that  Vikings wore horns?” he exclaimed, looking between her and the screen—they were watching  _ How  _ _ To _ _ Train Your Dragon _ , and Bellamy was getting frustrated over the horns on their helms. It was  an animated films for god’s sake.

“This movie is for kids.” she replied calmly.

“Well they’re teaching the kids wrong.” His whole face scrunched up, which was actually adorable.

“Wasn’t it actually never confirmed nor denied that  Vikings actually wore horns on their helmets?” she asked sweetly, seeing as it would make him frown at her.

“And how would the princess know?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her smugly. Huffing, she got up to the kitchen. “Oh, come on!” Bellamy shouted, it felt almost desperate.

“I’m getting water, dumbass.” she replied, pouring herself a glass of water, after drinking a couple cans of beer she felt quite drunk, if her swaying posture could tell anything by that. When she came back, she saw Bellamy closing his eyes, and laying his head on the back of the couch. “You tired?”

“’m resting my eyes.” he said, and she couldn’t stop and chuckled at his failed attempt to smirk at her, that came more of a tired smile. The time on her phone read 1:24am—she didn’t  realized how long they have watched the most random movie, ranging from horrors to cartoons.

“You can take my bed.” she said, feeling the sleepiness almost take over her—Bellamy stifled for a second, and then stood up shaking his head slightly.

“No, I’m just going to go.” he said, making his way to the door, but before he could take his jacket; Clarke stepped in front of him, stopping him. “Clarke--”

“You’ve been drinking, and you’re half asleep half awake.” she pushed him into the hallway that was leading him to her bedroom, but he was stronger, even in the state he was in.

“If I’m staying over then I am, taking the couch.” he said, and Clarke didn’t even fight him on it, seeing that he was trying to be a gentleman or something, which was annoying. 

Without another word, Clarke fetched the biggest blanket she could find, and grabbed a pillow from her bedroom—at least he could be partly comfortable on her small couch. She could see him testing different positions on it, when she came into the living room, which was a funny thing to look at, but it also made her feel bad.

“You’re sure you don’t  wanna take my bed?” she asked. “I’m shorter than you, so the couch suits me better for sleeping than you.”

“Are you sure that it’s okay for me to sleep over?” he asked, ignoring her questions. Clarke rolled her eyes, sighing and nodded. “Okay.” he finally said.

“Okay.” she deadpanned. “I know you’re not going to do that, but if you feel really uncomfortable on this.” she patted the couch. “Wake me up, and we’ll switch.”

“You’re right, I’m not going to do that, because it’s stupid.” he said, laying down on the couch. “See? Totally comfortable.”

“Sure.” she said; still unconvinced, turning the lights off. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” he said, and she made her way to her bedroom. The bed was big enough for at least two people, but she didn’t get up to the courage of suggesting that, seeing as it was the third  time they met each other—not counting the amount of texting they in between. They had time.

A shockwave went through her. They didn’t have time for that, because it would never happen—it was a passing thought about them sharing the bed, because it would probably would be the most convenient and comfortable way, she was being practical here, and her mind wasn’t thinking clearly, the alcohol made her head fuzzy.

She laid down on the bed, after changing into her oversized shirt, that she once stole from her ex—Finn, and even if she hated him immensely, that didn’t mean that the shirt was going to be thrown out, it was too cosy to do so. Sleep didn’t take over as quickly as it always did after her drinking even one glass of some alcohol—her mind kept going to the image of her and him sharing.

It was irrational to fantasize... if you could call it that way, she wasn’t having a sexual fantasy, it was just about sharing the bed, and having someone close. “Shut up.” she whispered, growing frustrated with herself. She wasn’t going to think anything sexual with the man sleeping couple meters away from her room, it was inappropriate, and gross.

After what felt like an hour, her mind was finally shutting up, when she saw her door open slightly, seeing Bellamy standing in the doorway, a fluttering feeling  stugged in her chest, and she could feel the corners of her lips tug up, but the feeling felt short, as the door closed not soon after, leaving her alone.

Sleep took over her in minutes this time.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Bellamy couldn’t sleep—it was partly because of the fear about him waking up screaming, from another nightmare and Clarke being freaked out, never wanting to hang out with him ever again, thinking he was crazy or something. The second part about the host herself. The desire to take her up on the offer, but just sleep in her bed together was getting more tempting—the couch was really small and to top that, super uncomfortable.

His thoughts started going in circles, he didn’t want to share the bed with her, but he was a gentleman so he wouldn’t just throw her out of her own room and take the bed, so it would be the best for both of them to simply share the bed, and also having a warm body next to him would be a nice thing. Not for anything sexual, he would never use her like that. Just the fact that if they did share a bed together, he really wouldn’t mind having her close.

He was such a hypocrite, deal with it.

“Fuck you.” he stood up from the couch, cursing at it, like it was a literal person. He slowly made his way to the door of her bedroom, opening it. He saw the blonde curled on the left side, hogging all the blankets to herself, and in that  moment he decided against himself, closing the door, and going back to the couch.

He slept on even more uncomfortable things in the past.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

In the morning when Clarke woke up, she found all the blankets folded on the couch, with Bellamy nowhere in sight. She felt disappointed for a moment, but that feeling disappeared when she saw a small note on top of the blankets.

2

_ Dear Clarke, _

_ Thank you for letting me sleep over, you were right the couch wasn’t as comfortable as I thought it’d be, but I slept the whole night so that’s a plus. I haven’t had the opportunity to stay when you would have woken (because it’s already 7:58am and I can hear you snoring all the way from the kitchen), but I had a morning shift at the bar, and my boss already hates me so I didn’t want to anger him even more. _

_ Thanks for yesterday, _

_ Bellamy _

She smiled at the formalness in the short letter he left her, it honestly didn’t surprise her, but still—it made her smile. She decided to text him.

_ [ _ _ Griffindor _ _ ] 9:28am: Dear Bellamy, I.DO.NOT.SNORE. _

She didn’t need to wait for a reply, because after no longer than ten seconds it showed that he read it.

_ [ _ _ bELOMI _ _ ] 9:28am: You’re cute. _

She blushed at the message, but a frown overtook her face after the next message after that popped up.

_ [ _ _ bELOMI _ _ ] 9:29am: You snore louder than  _ _ a _ _ elephant. _

_ [ _ _ Griffindor _ _ ] 9:29am: Have I told you that you’re the biggest asshole I’ve ever met? _

_ [ _ _ bELOMI _ _ ] 9:30am: I’ll take that as a compliment. _

Clarke threw her phone on the couch, rolling her eyes, even  thought she knew he didn’t see it—leaving him on read would be enough of a punishment (he probably didn’t realize she did that, seeing as he was an old man).

_ [ _ _ bELOMI _ _ ] 9:32am: leaving me on read, huh _

Oh, so he realized.

_ [ _ _ Griffindor _ _ ] 9:32am: And here I thought you were actually an old man. _

_ [ _ _ bELOMI _ _ ] 9:33am: I’m going to ignore that, and leave you on read. _

_ [ _ _ Griffindor _ _ ] 9:33am: Leaving someone on read is literally about not replying to someone, but seeing it, dumbass. _

_ Read by  _ _ bELOMI _ _ 9:34am. _

_ [ _ _ Griffindor _ _ ] 9:35am: Asshat. _


	5. Uncle Will.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A LOT happens in this fic, so just try to keep up :) this chapter hasn't been edited yet, so I apologize for any grammar mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies! is that even a word? Idk, moving on. This chapter is 6k+, so it is quite long. I've thought about parting it in two parts, but I really want to fit this fic into 10 chapters, so be prepared that some chapters are going to be long. Anyways, A lot happens here so bring your favorite blanket, make a human cocoon, and enjoy <3

Thanksgiving was Clarke’s least favourite holiday—her mother was very keen on expressing for what you were thankful at a table filled with creepy uncles and aunts asking whether or not she had a boyfriend (the talk about having a girlfriend was somehow forbidden by her mother, knowing that her whole family would stop talking to her, which wouldn’t be a problem for her, yet she didn’t want to anger Abby). She felt better in her shoe box sized apartment, okay, it wasn’t that small,  than her old home where her mother lived.

The biggest problem though was Raven being there. She hoped that she hadn’t told anyone about her new ‘boyfriend’ that in reality was her idiot of a friend that thought, a month ago, that the only way to get rid of the Raven was to tell her she was his girlfriend. Now she would probably  await for the numerous of questions from her whole family, which was quite big—even her uncles and aunts from Italy travelled all the way to the U.S. to celebrate stupid thanksgiving.

That’s how important this holiday was for her family.

Her father was really close with his family, her mother not so much, so after his death, her dad’s family grew closer to her and Abby, which wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen.

She loved that the Italian part of her family wasn’t as uptight as the rest of them were (hell, everyone from her father’s side wasn’t uptight)—they were obnoxious and loud, which made those big dinners better. Her mother would always smile tightly, laughing when it was appropriate, but frowning most of the time at the disgusting jokes. And don’t get her started when they started singing, that always made a great show.

So see, she didn’t hate her family to be precise—she hated the part where they’d put their attention on her, shoving their opinions on her, asking intimate questions about her love life, and it would be fine if it was just a question about a boyfriend, but no, they’d actually ask if she was having unprotected sex etc. She hated it with a burning passion. She felt like she was suffocating when something like that happened.

She was in the middle of packing her suitcase, because having one or two dresses was to small, and Abby would kill her if she didn’t bring at least four—for upkeeping the family reputation and other things.

Everyone was already at the homes back in their family town, or leaving later, so the whole town was only filled with old or middle-aged people, who were living here for the past decade at least.  So it was quite frankly a surprise, when she heard knocking on her door.

She went to the door, only to see a sweaty Bellamy standing in the hallway outside of her apartment. Express her shocked, honestly.

“What are you--”

“You  wanna hang out?” he asked, panting. She gave him a confused look, shaking her head slightly asking nonverbally as to why he was here, and not back home. “I was going for a run, but then I lost motivation, well kind of, and decided to come to you.” he answered, and that was not the question she wanted answered.

“It’s thanksgiving week, Bellamy.” she replied, but still letting him in. “Why aren’t you home with your family?” she asked, and she could see the surprise on his face.

“I-I’m going... just later.” he answered, and she looked back at him—he was scratching the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at her. He looked almost as if... he was nervous? She ignored that thought, he was probably tired.

“Me too, I always go on the last ring. I never got the idea of coming back home five days before the actual holiday.” she replied, and it sounded cold-hearted—some people actually had families who they loved spending time with, and if they had a chance they’d go back, but not her.

“...Yeah, right.” he smiled. “Why are you bringing so many dresses?” he asked, cocking his head at the pile on the couch and armchair, obviously confused at the image in front of him.

“To keep up the family’s tradition, read reputation, and look presentable even at 5 am, and what not.” she tried to joke, but it was honestly the truth.

“Rich people things, I get it.” he remarked, smirking down at her death glare.

“Shut up, and help me choose the last two dresses.” Clarke said, pulling him down with her on the floor, she pulled a few dresses, pushing them in his direction.

Bellamy got weirdly into picking dresses with her, pointing out every flaw on each one, and then even forcing her to dress up, but she was  to lazy and stubborn to do that, instead joking that he could probably fit into the one maxi dress she had. They argued mostly; she even found out he hated the colour dark green with a burning passion, so that was something to tease him about later.

When they were finished, she suggested they go to his apartment, and she could make fun of his clothing time at which he stifled besides her, she could even feel it.

“Uh, no need. I already packed.” he stuttered, not looking at her. This time she knew something was up, with him ignoring her face as if it was the plague; yeah, weird comparison, anyways.

“Okay, what’s going on?” she asked, sitting in front of him, almost in his lap, and she wouldn’t ignore it, but it was the least important thing in her worries now. Bellamy still wasn’t looking at her, to add to that his jaw was so tightly clenched, she was afraid he would break something in there. “Look at me, please.”

After a while, he turned to look at her straight into his eyes. “What’s going on?” she asked, worriedly.

“Nothing, everything’s fine.” he didn’t pay her attention, standing up. Clarke followed him to the kitchen—he was not going to just ignore her like that.

“Are you going to keep being  a asshat, or are you going to tell me what’s wrong.” she asked, standing in front of him, and looking up. He was at least head taller than her, but that didn’t intimidate her a bit.

“Idonthaveanyonetogobackto.” he rambled. She shot him a confused look, and in return he ran his fingers through his hair self-consciously. Bellamy took a deep breath. “I don’t have anyone to get back to.” he stuttered.

She felt an ache in her chest rise after hearing what he had to say, or maybe it was just because she was overly dramatic and sensitive when it came to lonely people, probably both. It still hurt to hear that he didn’t have anyone to come back home to, even though it wasn’t her business.

“Oh.” she said, not having the strength to utter any more words, the love for the dramatic scenes she had.

“I mean, I have, but they don’t want me so... I guess it’s the same thing.” he grinned, but she could see the hurt in his eyes, most of the time he was really hard to read, it was almost impossible, but she knew him better now—she saw that he was hurting.

“If- I don’t know if this will make you feel better or anything, but.” she paused, trying to find the right words. “Half of my family hates me, and honestly, I reciprocate the feeling.” she joked, and it pulled a silent chuckle out of him—she counted this as a win.

“You’re still going.” he remarked, and she grimaced. Yeah, Clarke hated confrontation, so if she didn’t come then she’d be forced to show some kind of explanation, like  _ I broke my arm, and it needed to be amputated _ , or  _ I have cancer. _ .. wait, no: both of these excuses would make things even worse, because either Raven or her mother would come and see her, because they somehow had a key to her apartment. She felt a hand waving in front of her. “Clarke? Earth to Clarke.”

She chuckled, this time she found herself being nervous for some stupid reason. “Yeah, I, uh, my mother is really pushy, with the checking up on me and other stuff, so if I wouldn’t show up they’d think I’m dead or something.” she explained, putting it as a joke, but in all honesty it was mostly the truth—after what her mother went through with her, her teenage years.

“I would kill for a mother like her.” Bellamy grumbled. “She really cares about you.” he said, and the only thing Clarke could do was smile broadly, instead of scoffing in his face—it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know they full story, most of the people didn’t.

In all honesty her mother cared more about her reputation if she actually ended up dead, than grieving over her daughter it seemed. And she didn’t even hold it against her, Abby was never affectionate or caring in her eyes, so she wouldn’t put it past her if she didn’t even shed a tear at the  _ hypothetical _ funeral in the future.

“Yeah, sure.” she answered, hiding the grimace she was forcing not to let out a grimace.

“If you want, um, this will sound extra weird...” he trailed off, which caught her attention. “I make a great companion at holiday dinner.” he wiggled his eyebrows, smiling widely, and she couldn’t stop but laugh at the nervousness in his voice, god, she’s never seen him being to twitchy.

“You really don’t want  that, trust me.”

“What? Being around people that make more in a month than I do in a year, with this blonde princess that keeps bullying me? That sounds amazing.” Bellamy exclaimed, grinning even more.

“Jerk.”

“ So I’ve heard.” he jabbed. “So what do you say?”

For a minute she thought about every outcome that could come out of it—if she showed up with him, a guy, a male, a man, all of her family would automatically think he’s her boyfriend, an added bonus that Raven would be there, so they’d need to be really affectionate towards each other, sharing a room, plus he’d get  interrogated by everyone.

“Raven’s going to be there too, so we’d need to act like we’re hopelessly in love with each other for a couple of days, and you’d get angry glares from my mother, who probably won’t like you.” she warned, but Bellamy’s smile didn’t even falter, in fact, it was even bigger than before.

“Sounds fun.” he exclaimed, putting his arm around her shoulder. “It won’t be that bad.” he said into her ear, his lips brushing her right cheek, Clarke stifled for a second, a blush starting to overtake her face, but she pushed it away, slapping him on his chest.

“We’re going back to your place, and picking out the fanciest clothing you have.” she grabbed her phone and keys from the kitchen table, and he followed her down to the car.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Bellamy’s apartment was surprisingly bigger than hers, and it really felt like home in comparison to her minimalistic style apartment, which only served the purpose for sleeping and binging tv shows on the small sofa. Here, he had different photos put up on the wall, one was of him and a little girl, with straight, almost black hair, and the others were from him in the bar he worked at—there was also this thing where had this too big couch in his living room, probably three times the size she had.

“Why are you so obsessed with my couch?”

“Because it’s so much bigger than mine.” Clarke answered from her laying position on it, she was never going to stand up from it, and yeah, here we go again with the dramatics, whatever. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on such comfortable couch.” she murmured to herself, she also didn’t miss Bellamy’s snort at her comment.

“Are you going to help me pack, or?” he asked, cocking his eyebrows at her,  _ this little piece of shit _ . He even smirked at her, knowing how she hated it.

“Do you even own a suit?”

That caught him off guard, acting almost as if she offended him. He scoffed. “Of course, I do have one.” both of them went through the hallway to his bedroom—the shade of grey his walls had been painted were setting up a depressing mood in the room, seeing as everything else was either crème brown, or had some accent of vibrant colours to it. She heard and saw Bellamy go through his closet, muttering something about her highness, and how he obviously owned a suit—this time it was her who snorted at his snarky comments.

“Do you need any--”

“No! I’m fine.” he grumbled, aggressively searching for a suit—it was almost pathetic. “Am not pathetic, I just have a messy closet.” he snapped, half-heartedly, which brought a smile out of her. 

After what felt like twenty minutes of seeing him struggle, she let out a breath. “You don’t own a suit.” she stated. “You probably did back in High School so you could be fancy for your prom date, but you threw it away months after.”

Bellamy’s head popped from the closet, looking at her. “That’s a hell of a story, Clarke. You sure you  wanna pursue pre-med and art history, when your real talent is making up stories?”

“Shut up.” Clarke grumbled. “You don’t need a suit; a nice shirt will do.” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, like your whole family isn’t going to be wearing  praga , or  Gucci , or something.”

“It’s Prada, and probably.” she replied, showing her own annoyance at the whole thing. “It’s like Thanksgiving is another runaway show for some of them.” It was true, most of her family members didn’t joke when it came to family reunions—they were dead-set on being the best dressed in the room; she used to make fun of her aunts glaring at each other from across the room like their life depended on it (that’s how serious it got sometimes).

“Well I don’t  wanna look bad for my beautiful girlfriend.” he exasperated, putting his hand on his chest where his heart was underneath—she wanted to punch him in the face for real this time. “You would never.” he said, smirking (yep, she just said that out loud).

“My uncles are going to interrogate you.” she warned, at which earned her a scoff from him.

“They’re going to love me.” he said confidently.

“Half of them are Italian.”

“So?”

“I don’t want to sound like a stereotype, but they don’t joke around about killing you if you ever hurt me.” she replied, grinning. “They’re probably going to list a couple of places where they will bury your body, and stuff.”

Bellamy looked kind of freaked out, maybe even terrified by the revelation that Clarke had just made. She couldn’t hold it in herself, and a loud belly laugh flew out of her, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. “Jesus, I can’t believe I actually believed you for a second.” Bellamy said, letting out a breath of relief.

“The look on your face was priceless.” she answered, smiling widely, still. “I wasn’t joking about the interrogation part, though. My dad’s brother, Will, he’s really protective of me, so he’s the one you should be making a great first impression to.”

“Got it.” Bellamy answered. “Maybe we’ll bond over how protective we are of the people we love, huh?”

“Maybe.” she trailed off. “Still, if you don’t  wanna get death threats, then don’t start discussing politics, because even if all of us there are against Trump, they’ll do anything to start a fight over.”

“You should write an instruction on how to be around your family.” Bellamy remarked, back with his cocky comments.

She ignored him. “They tend to be really loud when they get drunk, which, trust me, is hilarious, but don’t ever start dancing with them, you’re never going to get out of there if you do.”

“Anything else.” he asked.

“As I’ve said before, I don’t  wanna stereotype the Italian part of my family, but they tend to be really obnoxious, asking ever possible question there is, so don’t be surprised when a ‘are you sleeping together, or are you waiting until marriage’ question springs out on you, because it is going to happen.”

“You’re describing every Italian family in a movie right now. They’re probably not that bad, Clarke.” Bellamy said, throwing some shirts on the bed, which landed in her lap—they weren’t designer, but no one would judge him, they would probably be happy they didn’t have new competition on the ‘who wears the most expensive outfit tonight’ game.

“You’ll see.” she said. “They’re obnoxious, but I prefer them over the uptight part of the family.”

“How does a family like that function even?” Bellamy asked, sitting on the bed besides her, folding the shirts.

“The uptight part is from my mother’s side, and the loud one is from my dad’s.” she hoped he did miss the part where her voice cracked a little—she just didn’t like to talk about her father with anyone, or even think about him, because it only brought sad memories.

Hopefully Bellamy didn’t prod her with more questions, he just sat there with her, putting some t-shirts into his suitcase. At some point she must’ve needed to think about what they were doing exactly, with him coming to her home town, when they didn’t know each other very well, well as a half a month friendship  went, they did, but not enough to spend holidays together. And that moment of thinking, needed to be now.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want Bellamy back at home with her, quite on the contrary—she'd love to have him there—a person she could rely on, and trust in the whirlwind that was her family. But the nagging feeling of being afraid didn’t stop her, being an overthinker didn’t make her life easy.

“Bring the grey one.” she said, pulling a grey shirt with small, white lines twirling in different places on it, making it a floral effect from the pile that Bellamy non-verbally stated as a big ‘no’ on his packing list. “It’s nice.”

“Not too casual?”

“Nope.” she answered, putting it in the suitcase without another word.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

The ride back to her home town wasn’t long, or maybe it didn’t feel as long as it always did—Bellamy kept changing the songs before one ended, which made the both of them to start fighting over whether Cage the Elephant or Taylor Swift they were going to listen. In the end they’ve settled on a podcast both of them liked—it had something to do with how the Romans portrayed art, and how important it was too them.

Clarke’s heart started beating harder against her ribcage, when she recognized the houses, and buildings around them, knowing that in a matter of minutes they were going to be at her mother’s house; this could end really badly, or great. There was no in between.

“It’s the brown- ish house, with probably a lot of cars in the driveway.” Clarke instructed. “There.” pointing it at her childhood home, and even she could admit that it seemed even bigger than the last time she was here—she wouldn’t be surprised that her mother expanded the house, to build another office to work in.

“This literally looks like a castle.” he said. “I guess my nickname for you fit  perfectly, huh.”

“I hate you.” Clarke muttered, but she couldn’t help but smile a little seeing a beautiful grin spread on his face.

“No, you love your boyfriend so much.” he exclaimed, pouting slightly, which made her even more irritated with him.

“The  next couple of days are going to be torture with you.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

To say that the nickname, Princess, was the most accurate was an understatement—the house he parked at was huge, and if that wasn’t impressive enough, then the cars in the driveway did it. He tried to ignore the loud noises coming from the house, laughter and literal screaming was being heard, and it did make anxious—with making a good first impression and all.

Even though he wasn’t her real boyfriend.

“Come on, let me help you.” Clarke said, coming to the trunk of the car and taking two bags from him. “I don’t need to be treated like a princess.” and he could tell that she was smirking at him, even though she turned away.

“You think they’re going to like me?” he asked, because he couldn’t hold it in him anymore, the closer they got to the house, the quicker his heartbeat has become—plus, her warning him about her whole family and how some of them are wasn’t calming.

“Depends.” she smirked, cocking her head at the house. “Come on, they’re going to love you. Just fake laugh at their jokes, and everything will be alright.”

As they got to the doors, she didn’t bother to knock, which, okay; it was her home. The house inside was even more luxurious; huge stairs in the middle, vanilla coloured walls, that had the effects that gold was on them too (which wouldn’t be too shocking if there actually was real gold in the walls), the contrast of the bloody red carpet made everything even more extraordinary.

“Clarkie!” he heard a male voice exclaim, coming from his right side, he saw a man hardly in his mid 40’s, wearing a huge grin on his face, opening his arms to her.

“Uncle Will.” she said, less excitingly, returning the hug with a smile on her face. The man seemed to hold her in his embrace for a little longer, swaying from sides.

“The last time I saw you was at Christmas three years ago, how have you been?” he asked, and it even brought a smile out of Bellamy, seeing how happy the man was to see Clarke.

“I’ve been well... Uh, meet  my .” she turned to him, swallowing. “Boyfriend.”

The man, turned slightly to look at him up and down, raising one eyebrow. Bellamy raised a hand to shake his, but in return got a cold stare, he pulled back his hand, shuffling awkwardly, which made things even more uncomfortable.

“He has a name?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at him.

“Bellamy Blake, Sir.” he said, his voice getting lower, which it always did when he grew serious, or when he talked with professors at college. Clarke didn’t speak a word, not even bothering to make the situation less uncomfortable as it was right now. The man didn’t even bother to hum; he just stood there, as if he was studying Bellamy’s every move.

Suddenly, as if he did a 180, and laughed loudly.

“Ah, William Griffin.” he clapped him on the shoulder roughly that could easily bruise, then out of nowhere he pulled him into a crushing hug, which didn’t last as long as it did with Clarke, but still. “Nice to meet you.” he exclaimed.

“Nice to meet you, too.” Bellamy said, smiling at him. 

“Okay, kids. Get upstairs before all of the aunts come here, and start a fest about Clarke Griffin finally coming back for the holiday.” he said, pushing them to the stairs. “You’ll get enough of that at the dinner table.” he winked at the both of them and retreated back to where he came from, which was the living from what Bellamy saw, but it could easily be the ‘resting room’ or something like that; he’s heard rich people tend to have multiple living rooms.

“So... that was your uncle.” he said when they got to her bedroom, it wasn’t pink with huge posters of One Direction as he thought it would be; it was white, with really light furniture—it looked as if she never lived here, it didn’t feel home-y.

“Yep, my dad’s brother.” she said, unpacking some of the toiletries. “He liked you.”

“He’s scary.” Bellamy remarked. “You didn’t even do anything when he started this weird ‘looking at me slash studying me’ thing.” he grew a tiny bit annoyed.

“It’s how he is. You stood there, looking right into his eyes; that’s why he liked you.” she commented. “My last boyfriend got scared, and started stuttering and all that, he disliked him immediately.”

“Well, at least there’s that.” he said, but it still felt weird—if her whole family was like that, then his chances of survival were minimal. “I can sleep on the floor, just give me a blanket. The rug seems comfortable.”

He heard her make a sound of protest, and then felt her come up to him, sending death glares his way. “Absolutely not, we’re sharing.” she said. “You’re my guest, my friend, not my dog, Blake.” she snapped.

He threw his hands in the air in surrender. “You sure that’s a good idea?” he asked, because Bellamy understood why she wanted to share with him—there was literally no way of asking for a spare room for him, it would make things weird, seeing as in her families eyes they were a couple, plus, he wanted to not make her uncomfortable in her own house, her own childhood bedroom.

“I trust you.” she answered, simple as that, and he believed her. Bellamy nodded curtly, getting back to organizing his clothes.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

For the past hour, Clarke spent on laying on the bed and talking to a nervous wreck that was Bellamy Blake, rambling about making a good first impression on her family, which she didn’t quite understand at first, knowing it was purely because that dumbass told Raven, who would be at the dinner that they were together, and coming here as friends would complicate things.

“Are all of them like your uncle?” he asked suddenly, out of nowhere.

“No, he was the worst thing to come across if you want to make a great first impression. And you did.” she reassured him for, what seemed like the tenth time today. “You look quite handsome, Mister Blake. Now let’s go downstairs, before my uncle comes up here.”

Bellamy shot her a alarmed look, that she laughed at, because he was too nervous for this whole thing—they were acting, he wouldn’t probably see these people for the rest of his life. 

When they got downstairs, the table was already made for at least fifteen people—yes, it looked like from the Disney movies, it was  _ that _ huge. All of the people were already gathering there, so she grabbed Bellamy’s hand, squeezing it to calm him at least a little bit. When they got to the table, he made a show of pushing her chair back, for her to sit in, then sat next to her. Son of a bitch, he was a gentleman.

She heard her mother gasp when she saw her, pulling her into a hug, even though it was really uncomfortable for the both of them, with Clarke sitting, and her standing behind her.

“Clarke, honey!” She exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you in such  a long time.”

“Missed you too, mom.” she said, smiling at her, but the smile wasn’t quite genuine. “This is--”

“Bellamy Blake, yes.” she said, and turned to him. He, of course, stood up, shaking her hand. “William has already told me about this secret boyfriend you had.” she smiled tightly.

“Nice to meet you, Ma’am.” Bellamy said, smiling, but not too much.

When everyone finally sat down at the table, the discussions didn’t grow silent as they should, with the whole table etiquette and all. They were even more loud, which must’ve surprised him, seeing the look on his face.

Bellamy sat closer to her, leaning in to say something in her ear. “I thought everyone would be uptight.” he said.

“Look at your left, my mom and a couple of people there are.” she gestured with her head, and her distraught looking mother, and irritated aunts, their heads up as if they were too good for talking with anyone at the moment. She heard him chuckle.

“I’m telling you it’s not longer than a year, Ann.” one of her uncles, probably Joaquin, or Sergio, slamming his hands on the table at which Bellamy winced lightly.

“Is there going to be a fight here?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at which she shook her head.

“They’re always like that, better get used to it.” with a shrug she turned her attention back to the delicious food in front of her—she still had this voice in the back of her mind, telling her not to eat too much, or throw it up, and she was sure that by now it would never go away, but she closed her eyes, shaking her head slightly, taking a bite.

“Bellamy!” she heard uncle William say. “Tell this old sport here that you’ve been dating for not longer than a year.” he gestured at her uncle Joaquin. Oh, god—so it started.

“Uhm, Yeah. We’ve been dating for the past ten months.” he answered, and oh shit, she broke up with Finn eight months ago.

“Weren’t you dating that sleazy guy, huh, Clarke?” her uncle asked, and she only could cough, laughing awkwardly, because she had no idea how to get out of this situation.

“We broke up a year ago.” she lied, because she was 100% sure that her whole family didn’t hasn’t kept tabs on her.

“Huh, well alright.” he huffed. “Bellamy, could you help me with the turkey.” her uncle asked, and oh shit—she felt bad for Bellamy.

He shot her an alarmed look, but nodded at William, standing up from the table, she got the chance to squeeze his hand hoping it would somehow calm him down. She saw the two man go back into the kitchen.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

When Clarke’s uncle asked him for help, his anxiety went through the roof, but he kept telling himself that Clarke told him that he liked him, so there wouldn’t be anything bad happening, probably the ‘you hurt her, I hurt you’ talk was going to happen, nothing else.

“How old ‘ ya ?” he asked, going to the fancy set of alcohol—they had a mini bar in their house,  _ who the fuck had a mini bar in their house _ ?! He handed him a glass of whiskey...so they weren’t here for the turkey.

He should’ve guessed.

“23, sir.” he answered.

“You’re more mature for your age than I expected.” he answered, and to be honest—Bellamy didn’t know if he should take it as a compliment or not, this man was hard to read. “I’m her father’s brother, and I promised to him that I’d protect her, from everything that could hurt her. You understand that?”

“Of course, sir.”

He scoffed. “Stop with the sir shit, it makes me feel old.” he snapped, but then grinned at him—Bellamy felt as if he was in  a emotional Rolle coaster at this point. “I hope you and I aren’t going to have problems, because I like you.”

Bellamy sighed, thank god for him actually liking him.

“Since you’ve been dating her for ten months, you two probably know almost everything about each other, huh?”

“Yeah.” he answered, because what else could he tell?  _ No, we actually met one and a half months ago and built this strange but strong friendship through fighting over texts, and annoying movie commentary. _

“That’s good. I guess, you already know that I haven’t kept the promise to Jake.”

“I-”

“I’m glad she has someone like you back there. I’m not talking that she can’t take care of herself, because trust me, I know she can.” he chuckled, and Bellamy smiled.

“We take care of each other.” he answered, and this time it wasn’t fully a lie—being busy, texting her stupid memes was kind of a get away from the nightmares and his annoying roommate.

“That’s good.” he said, and then shook his head. “It’s good to see her being healthy. I’ve heard she’s been doing good for the past couple of years.”

Bellamy didn’t know what else to say, because he wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about, but he guess William thought he already was aware.

“I promised her father to not let anything bad happen to her, and what happens months after his death? She suffers from an eating disorder.” He exclaimed, his expression getting sadder with every word. “I’m not telling you to remind you of this, because she told you, but because you need to promise me the same thing.”

“W-what?” he asked.

“For you two to take care of each other. She’s been through things that no young adult should be going through.” he replied. “Ha, not trying to scare you off, Bellamy. I know you’ve been dating for less than a year, but that look you have when you stare at her, that’s not lust, that’s love, my friend.” he clapped him on the shoulder once more.

It took him a moment to speak. He took a deep breath, and... “I promise.” he looked at him, and he’s never meant it more than he had in this moment. William left him in the kitchen alone, finally.

Bellamy was left speechless—he shouldn’t have said anything about them knowing everything about each other. The thing he’s said to her was extremely private, and if Clarke hasn’t told him yet, then he would never push her to do so, so knowing this put him in a weird position that he didn’t know how to get out of.

He should probably tell her, like ripping off a Band-Aid, quick and not that painful as it would’ve been if he did it slowly. The revelation of the ‘not lust, love’ also made him feel uneasy, he’s never gotten such a comment from anyone, the only thing that he got was Lincoln’s snarky replies that he looks at her sometimes as if he wanted to take right here and there, which was disgusting.

When he got back, he saw that Clarke was the only one not in the room, and that a  middle-aged man with a beard sat in her seat, holding Abby’s hand.

Her mother turned to look at him. “She’s in her bedroom.” she answered. “Go check on her.”

He had a feeling that something was wrong, either it was because of how everyone grew silent at the table, or how Abby’s face dropped when she replied to him. Bellamy made his way  upstairs; her door was slightly opened when he walked closer to it.

When he knocked on the door lightly, he heard a shuffle on the other side, then he heard a quiet ‘come in’, and he did. The only light on was the one near her bed, still; the whole room was dark, the moonlight shooting through the windows helped him see her, looking out of it. She didn’t turn around when he came closer to her.

“Are you okay?” he asked, she shrugged with her shoulder, still not making any effort to even glance at him.

“My mother also brought her new boyfriend today.” she answered. “The whole thing is just really weird for me, you know.”

“Yeah, I get it.” he replied. “That guy with the Gandalf beard?” he joked, and she let out a chuckle nodding.

“Yeah.” she turned around to him, and he could barely make out the single tear rolling down her cheek. “It’s just, I know my dad has been gone for  _ years _ , but it still feels strange.”

Bellamy nodded, and she sighed. He pulled her into his embrace, holding her there for a few minutes, after a while he felt her relax. It was comforting, seeing her so at ease and not being all tensed up around her family—he wasn’t the only one that was stressed today, he realized.

When they pulled away, he still held her waist, and her hands landed on his chest, he looked up at her, and saw that she was smiling slightly at him, but he could see the small confusion in her eyes. It was probably his fault, because he couldn’t help himself, but steal a glance at her pink, plump lips that were slightly parted.

“Bellamy...” she breathed, looking at his lips now, too. He didn’t know what else to do, so he pulled her even closer, their noses almost touching, their eyes never leaving each other. He could hear a faint noise from downstairs, the discussions probably resumed back, but the only thing he could focus on was  _ her _ .

He wasn’t sure if it was him or her who leaned closer, but they did—their lips touched, not kissing to be exact, just brushing against each other, until his hand rested on the back of her neck, pulling her even closer, the kiss wasn’t urgent, it was like something he’s never felt before, it wasn’t some mind-blowing kiss, but the feelings behind it was  _ everything _ .

With one  nightstands , it was usually desperate, and sloppy, not caring whether it even was a good kiss, getting straight away to business, but this kiss wasn’t it at all, he’s only centre of attention was the press of their lips, _nothing more_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they kissed, oh my god they kissed. If you haven't read any of my one-shots then you probably don't know, but if you have, then you know that I'm a whore for slowburn bellarke but can't write it for the life of me, it's just impossible for me to write 40k+ words of bellarke being platonic, it's just how I am. Okay, AND I APOLOGIZE for the cliffhanger, i honestly wanted to write more, but this chapter would be 10k+ and it would be just too much, the next chapter should be released at the end of this week at worst, and at best if I'll finish it, then maybe I'm gonna post it tomorrow... or today, anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this <3
> 
> Comment down bellow what you think is going to happen next <3 Kudos are much appreciated *heart eyes emoji*


	6. Let go.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some bellarke angst, but would it be a bellarke fanfic if we didn't have angst in it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this at 2am, half awake since I've dreading with what to do with this fic, but I think I have a plan for it to actually end in those 10 chapters (maybe more), so be patient with me <3
> 
> Update:  
> I've decided that I'm not sure in what direction I should take this fic, and I PROMISE that I'll finish it and not leave you all hanging but it will probably take me some time to figure what happens next (btw im not talking about a month break, it's gonna be max. two weeks.)

The kiss didn’t last long, when almost right after they got more into it, a loud clacking noise came from downstairs. It was either a plate being some kind of glass being broken, or someone throwing a literal chair across the room. He wasn’t sure.

When they pulled away, he felt like he was on some kind of cloud nine; Clarke must’ve been more recollected because she was the one who pulled away first. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen after.

“So-” she started.

“We did that.” he stated, both of them ignoring  eye contact.

“Uh, yeah.” she coughed, the tension getting even thicker between them. Bellamy was never the one who would shy away from situations like that, but this was Clarke, a really attractive woman, who he may have had a small crush on...and she was his friend,  _ for fuck’s sake _ . He was not going to be the first one to speak this time. “What now?”

Well fuck, he was going to need to answer this.  So he did the biggest idiotic thing he could do, and said. “Your uncle told me you had or still have an eating disorder, because he thought I already knew that.” he stuttered out, and he saw her eyes widen in shock.

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Something must’ve snapped in her—her face turned from surprised, vulnerable to a closed off and stern. He prided himself for always being able to read her, but in this  moment, he had no idea what was going inside of her head.

“I understand.” she nodded, crossing her arms on her chest and moving away from him, she turned back to looking at the ground. “Could you tell my mom that I’m tired and going to sleep?” she asked, her voice small.

He wanted to ask her, if she was okay, but he was sure that she would only give him a shrug. Even though, he did ask. “Yeah, of course.” she answered, giving him a forced grin. He nodded, and went downstairs.

“Hey, we’re really tired, so we’re going to sleep. Goodnight.” he said to Abby, and she nodded, giving him a smile.

“Goodnight, Bellamy.” she replied, then she returned her attention to one of the drunkest guys in there, probably taking care that he’ll not break anything—if the sound from earlier wasn’t anything to go by.

When he went to their room, Clarke was already bundled up on the right side of the bed, the duvet covering her all the way to her chin, she didn’t seem to be asleep yet, but he didn’t ask her again if she was okay, he knew something was not right, but he couldn’t lay a finger on it, yet.

He went to the bathroom, brushing his teeth and changing to one of his oldest t-shirts. When he came back, Clarke didn’t move an inch. Bellamy sat on his side of the bed, the atmosphere in the room was thick with unresolved tension. “Goodnight.” he whispered to her, laying on his back.

“ G’night .” she whispered back, he felt something in his chest tighten, because of how cracked the words from her sounded. He wouldn’t probably be able to sleep tonight, but he closed his eyes nonetheless.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Clarke was trying as hard not to cry, when Bellamy left to go downstairs.  Of course that would be the thing that would be the problem, and she couldn’t even blame him for pulling away because of that. Most of the people in her life would do the same thing, if they knew.

It still hurt as hell, seeing the person you put the most trust in, reacting  they way he did. It wasn’t like she expected him to be with her, she hasn’t even thought about the two of them being in a relationship, or whatever it could be—she knew he didn’t want that, Bellamy always complained to her about how relationships never work out, and that the chance to find your true love and be  with them for the rest of your life was one in a million, or even less.

Nevertheless, it felt good. Having someone close, someone she could actually rely on, reacting like that. She let the tears roll down her cheeks, a sob went through her throat. She was done with everything, every time she let someone in the same thing happened. It was not worth it.

After she heard him come into the room, and to the bed, she stilled, putting a hand over her mouth to silence the sobs coming out of her. Even her answer to his stupid ‘goodnight’ sounded so wrecked, she was sure he knew that something was wrong.

Her mother had freaked out when she strutted to the hospital, seeing her laying there with an IV in her arm, and she totally understood that—the line of psychologists after that was tiring, but she knew why her mom wanted her to attend sessions, then Raven found out via Abby of course, and her mother’s response was that she could have an ally her own age, helping her through everything.

Then Finn happened, and he flipped when he found out—she trusted him with that secret, but it came out to be one of her biggest regrets, as her ex-boyfriend told almost everyone in the bar, when he got drunk and started moping about his girlfriend dying (spoiler alert: she wasn’t). 

From that moment on, she promised herself not to tell anyone.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The next morning was even worse, she was the first one to wake up. In the bathroom, when she looked at the mirror, her whole face was even paler, and her eyes red—she looked like Edward from Twilight, but he looked at least hot, she was a hot  mess at least.

After fifteen minutes of getting herself put together, she entered her room, seeing an already awake Bellamy sitting up with a ridiculous bed head. She smiled at him, it being actually honest, and he returned it.

“Hi, slept well?” she asked.

“Yeah, and you?” she hummed. “ So when do you usually leave the house?” he asked.

“Um, in like two or three hours. I don’t want to take part in one of my uncles little goodbye parties, it’s not fun, trust me.” she said, and Bellamy nodded. “ So pack everything up, and let’s go downstairs to eat something before we leave.”

The two of them, started packing up toiletries, and any chargers laying around, because Bellamy being the paranoid idiot there is, brought three chargers. She tried to joke with him, but the jokes always felt flat; he in return laughed awkwardly at them. It was never like tat between them, but she needed to adjust, because it was probably become their new normal.

The biggest probability would be probably that after today, when they’d finally arrive back at their homes, they’d exchange couple of texts and that would be it; and she needed to get over that, as much as it hurt losing him, she couldn’t be a burden to him.

The breakfast was awkward, she forgot that her mother had a boyfriend, who also run for the office; the perfect duo the both of them were. Bellamy tried discussing politics with Jaha, who had a strong opinion about everything, he stopped trying after another short response from the man. She hated rich people.

“Have a safe drive.” uncle Will said, hugging her one more time—the only family member she could stand in the moment.

“Love you.” she replied, going to the driver's seat. Bellamy was packing their bags into the trunk of the car. He gave her a stern look, seeing as she was the one who was driving. “You drove the last time. It’s my turn now.”

“Alright.” he huffed.

The first few hours of the drive back were silent, shitty music coming from the radio was the only sound there. She has hoped that Bellamy would take a long nap during the whole ride, but she was wrong—he was staring out of the window or texted someone every couple of hours.

Clarke wasn’t going to be the first one to speak, there being a big possibility that tears would freely start flowing out of the corners of her eyes, down her cheeks—she wasn’t a cry-baby per se, but the thought of him not wanting to speak ever again, because of her eating disorder was terrible. She didn’t want to have a panic attack while driving the car.

So, she was half relieved, half anxious when he asked. “Can we stop at the first station?”

“Yeah, of course.” Clarke answered, nodding. From the corner of her eyes she could see Bellamy frowning at her, and normally she’d say why he was staring at her, but she found herself too afraid speak. It was getting ridiculous.

“Are we okay, Clarke?” not Princess, he didn’t say Princess, the littlest details frustrated her—she could feel the tears starting to come out. “Clarke?” his voice was above whisper, but she could hear the alarmed voice there.

“I’m okay.” she answered, a tear or two slid down her cheek, and she couldn’t help the sob coming next. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t lose another person, because of how stupid she was, agreeing for him to come and meet her crazy family. It was all her fault after all.

“Stop, there.” he ordered, pointing at the upcoming station. She nodded, driving to the parking next to it. The radio being off made things even worse, because now he could hear her sobs, she couldn’t help it.

“Y-you can go now.” she answered, cocking her head at the entry to the station. “Buy something, or use the toilet, I don’t know.”

“Clarke...” he said, the sadness in his voice being unmistakable.

“Could you buy me tissues, I- I don’t have any.” Clarke replied, her sobs getting louder every second—she hoped he’d just go and do what she asked him to, and leave him alone, but that wasn’t the case here. She knew Bellamy’s mother hen nature, and that he would not leave her until she explained why she was crying.

“Clarke, what’s happening.” he put a hand on her shoulder, she didn’t bother to hide her red and blotchy face way from him, looking at him. She saw the worry written all over his face, not helping the fact that she was already a wreck and seeing him like that worsened things even more. “Talk to me.” he whispered.

“I’m o-okay.” she answered, smiling  tearily him. Bellamy shook his head.

“I see that you’re not.” Both of his hands were now on her, on was touching her forearm, the other was on her knee, rubbing circles on it. “Please, you can trust me.”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” she said, scoffing; his brows furrowed in confusion.

“What do you mean?” he asked, and couldn’t stand the worry in his voice.

“Nothing. Just the thing with my mom. It’s overwhelming.” she lied, and to her surprise (and luck) Bellamy seemed to believe it—he gave her a gentle smile, rubbing her arm. She seemed to relax under his touch.

“It’s a big change, but you’re strong, Clarke.” he replied, after w few seconds, he chuckled. “ Jaha seemed like  a uptight CEO of Walmart.”

Clarke couldn’t stop the laugh coming out of her, he always knew what weird shit to tell her, to brighten her day just a little bit—yeah, it was sappy, whatever. “Just go, and buy me tissues asshole.” she answered, smiling at him. He nodded and made his way out of the car and to the store.

She could still feel the hurt, but it was less. She knew how this was going to go when they would finally come back home—ignored texts, excuses why he couldn’t hang out, staying in touch being more and more difficult, so in the end they just stop and act as strangers on the streets.

It was a cliché, she was a fucking living cliché, and she couldn’t do anything about it.  _ You still have your whole family and Jasper and Monty _ , a positive voice in her head reminded her, but it wasn’t enough.

Hers and Bellamy’s friendship started in the most inconvincible way possible, and she liked it like that, the texts they exchanged were mostly dumb; filled with dry memes, and weird history facts from both sides. She could call him out on his shit, and he could do the same with her, without worrying about going too far, because that’s how they were.

She heard a light knock on the window, the lock on the car was broken in the right side of the passenger entry, so she needed to open it manually—Bellamy handed her a few packets of tissues, and a peach flavoured water; her favourite. She gave him a smile in return, muttering a quiet “thanks”

“You’re really okay?” he asked her, and she nodded. “You know you can talk to me, right?” he asked once more, and she nodded  _ once  _ more .  _ No, you can’t _ , her head filled with negative thoughts, which she tried to push aside...at least for the rest of the road trip.

By the time she started up the engine, her hands weren’t shaking that much, that he could see—she wasn’t ugly crying as she was before, her eyes were red, sure, but it wasn’t like she would break down any minute now. She could feel the worried glances Bellamy stole in the span of a couple of minutes at her, but she ignored them—they weren’t meaningful, he was just being his mother hen self. It felt as if it was coded into his DNA at this point.

The rest of the trip went by smoothly, they switched places once, when her eyes started feeling heavy, Bellamy insisted that he was well awake, so she agreed. Clarke could still feel his eyes heavy on her, when they stopped at a red light, or him once again stealing glances at her, when she was trying to fall asleep, but knew damn well that she was getting nowhere with it.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It has been almost a week later, when he got her to finally text him back—he knew something was wrong from the moment she broke down at the gas station; tense shoulders, stiff posture, short responses. All the signs that something was wrong were there, and he didn’t do anything about them, asking if someone is okay once was not enough.

When his phone lit up on the top of the table, he was sitting at in the library—getting a few disapproving glares from the librarian, and people studying, he felt his  whole body buzz with excitement; he really missed their stupid memes, and historical facts. What he got in reality was far from what he wanted, but it still was something, a sign that she was in fact, not dead in her apartment. He had a burning passion for dramatics.

_ I’m busy, essays and family stuff _ . Was her text—plain and simple. He desperately tried not to read between the lines for a deeper meaning of it, but he did so, seconds later. His theories grew from normal ones, like believing she actually had a busy week, but then they kind of stumbled downwards; becoming kind of dark, and depressing. That was how his mind worked.

It didn’t help that since the night of their kiss, he couldn’t stop himself and look at her Instagram profile every couple of minutes, when no one was at the bar, and he had nothing better to do (that was, what he told himself). He grew desperate to get in touch with her, at least a hi or a stupid dad joke, but there was nothing. It was only a week, not even a full one, if you don’t count Sunday, and he got in the overthinking territory.

_ What if the kiss made things worse, and now she feels uncomfortable around me? _

_ Maybe she’s tired of me. _

_ Should’ve kept your mouth shut when Raven asked, who was there. _

_ She doesn’t want to talk to me. _

_ I ruined everything, and now I can’t even repair it, because I don’t know how to. _

_ This is all my fault. _

He missed her simply, that was the easiest answer as to why he was acting the way he did; the overthinking and self-doubt wasn’t something he was unfamiliar to—constant thoughts about how he fucked up, his relationship with his sister: leaving her alone, not being enough to help his mother: leaving her with to selfishly run away like a child, seek for a better future  _ for himself _ . 

And Clarke was leaving him, when everything was so good between them, but the spinning thought of her being disgusted by him now, uncomfortable, not knowing how to get away from a guy who constantly sends her memes, trying his best, but doing the worst at the same time.

Until this moment, there wasn’t a time when he thought he wasn’t enough for her, because the constant bubble of ironic jokes, banter and bickering at the same time distracted him from what was really going on; telling her pseudo friend that he was her boyfriend, lying to her whole family about their relationship, then kissing her when she was at her most vulnerable— _ using her _ , just to get what he wanted.

“Due to the schools new policy, we’re closing earlier on Saturdays.” an even older librarian, he hasn’t seen ever told everyone; the words breaking him out of a panic attack starting. He gathered all his things, as the other students did too, and went back to his car, which to his luck was parked not more than 50 meters away from the library.

The drive seemed longer than it had ever; the low music of some new jazz band playing on the radio, his window closed seeing at it was surprisingly getting colder in Arcadia, and his phone laying in his half-opened backpack, in the passenger seat, laying untouched since the moment he saw her message.

“Fuck it.” he grabbed the phone, opening up his messages with Clarke on messenger, and typing up a reply. Bellamy has gotten the ‘don’t text when driving’ speech from several of advertisements on the television, or from his paranoid manager at the bar, which was surprising, but yes, he got the talk. Loud and clear. But he was also a really slow and careful driver (the opposite of her, who drove like she was in a race or late for something important).

_ Whenever you get time to spend some time with your fake boyfriend/friend, text or call me. _ He hit send, and looked back at the road, which to his (not) surprise was empty as always, the only noise outside were the huge tress were moving because of the wind that was getting really bad. Minutes later he saw that she read the message, but nothing else. She wasn’t probably going to respond, which wasn’t surprising.

When Bellamy finally got to his place; the first thing he did was strip out of the uncomfortable sweater he bought back when he was a freshman, trying to impress the professors, which was idiotic. Studying was out of the question, from the time when he saw a text from Clarke, he wasn’t in the right mind space to study. Sleep didn’t take him long, as it almost always did, he was out before her knew it.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

_ Whenever you get time to spend some time with your fake boyfriend/friend, text or call me. _

She looked at his text, expecting some kind of magic to happen for it to disappear—but it didn’t. All of the essays she had to write, were already submitted, and she hasn’t spoken to her mother since the time they left her house, and she wasn’t going to, but she also hadn’t had any other excuse to make, when he asked if she wanted to hang out, and watch some horror movie at his place.

Ignoring him for almost a week didn’t do anything good for her, and probably for him too. But that was one of the things she needed to do, even if it felt unusual at first, not texting him in the morning before classes started, or hanging out, watching shitty films. The last two months were filled with things, that is somehow started being a routine for her. He quickly became one of her closest friends, even if Murphy said otherwise, stating the so ‘obvious’ they were going to fuck before they knew it, which didn’t happen, but it was close—if you call a kiss that.

She still had a planner in her drawer, filled with calorie intake, and how much she needed to eat every day to stay healthy, it was something to keep her mind safe from the past, keeping herself organized was the only thing she had under control these days, so she would stick with it.

**_ [Raven Reyes] 9:59pm: _ ** Call your mom, she’s been trying to get a hold of you.

She rolled her eyes at the text, as if she didn’t know what her mom would say, it was the usual talk after family gatherings/reunions whatever you’d like to call it—happened either in person or over the phone. Checking up on her, but then moving onto her school plans and what she’s going to do afterwards, seeing as she was moving into her last semester before graduating. Her mother was always business, nothing less.

That was also one of the main reasons, why she loved having Bellamy by her side when she was back there, having a rock, keeping her in place, before she could burst. That all happened before the kiss, and him knowing about her past condition. It wasn’t like she was like that now; she was healthy, having a diet, and going to the gym every so often, but she understood where he was coming from—he was still probably too afraid to take the responsibility of her breaking at some point.

She knew what he first saw in her, a pretty blonde with salty remarks, a little bit of family issues, but that being her only problem—not bulimia, and she understood that. She needed to let him go.

So Clarke decided not to respond to the text he sent her, and leaving Raven on read, because really; she couldn’t care less about her in the moment.

She was going to get over Bellamy, even if the kiss felt good, felt right. She was going to be her normal self, and in a blink of an eye, they would be strangers passing on the streets, as it was before. She was fine with it, and so would be he. That was the easiest option there, so she took it, and in some people’s eyes it would come by as her being a coward, not facing her problems head-on, but she knew the outcome of it already.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“Dude, burning a hole into your phone with your eyes isn’t a thing.” Murphy snapped, after he checked his phone for what felt like the 10 th time. He was dreading the message he has sent her three days ago, and her leaving him on read wasn’t his  favourite thing either.

“Shut up, Murphy.” he grumbled, half listening to Lincoln sharing some ‘crazy’ story from the party last night, he fortunately wasn’t dragged to by the two of them. From the half panic attack, half explosion of his anger at the blonde, he’s been keeping busy with his shifts at the bar, and his professors weren’t stopping at the huge assignment amounts; the nightmares were a different thing. They happened before her, so why would they stop now?

“Anyways, she was sitting in my lap grinding against me, and then out of nowhere her boyfriend punched me.” Lincoln laughed, as it were the funniest thing he’s ever said. Bellamy gave him a lazy nod, rolling his eyes. “The thing is, he wasn’t angry because his girlfriend was on top of me, he was angry that I didn’t do anything with it, just watched.” he exclaimed.

“Maybe he’s into some weird shit, plus anger issues.” Murphy replied. “ Emori and I back in the day had this open relationship thing going on, and it was fun until I started getting jealous over her spending time with George something Tucker.”

“That guy who she wanted you to have threesome with?” he asked, still half  committed to the conversation.

“Yeah.” Murphy slumped against him, looking at the ceiling, as if Bellamy was his cuddle buddy, he pushed him to the right side of the couch. “Most open relationship end like that, because there’s always going to be this person who actually grows possessive of the other, jealousy comes into play.” he sighed.

“I had a threesome once, and the way Roma started being jealous because I gave too much attention to Bree in her opinion, she left right after.” he said, and Lincoln’s brows shot up almost to his hairline.

“Why did I never hear that from you?” he asked. “But Roma still has the hots for you, Blake. If the last party you  attended was anything to go by.”

Lincoln was right, she was insistent on flirting with throughout the whole night almost, or the time he was downstairs, nursing his awful rum/whiskey/something Jasper and Monty made calling it ‘moonshine’. But his sexual rendezvouses were over almost as soon as they started from freshmen to sophomore year of college, now he was a responsible senior with internships to be hired to, or starting his own business. That was yet to decide.

“She’s not my type, anymore.” he answered, going for the safest reply he could get. Now the only girl on his mind was a salty blonde, with curves of a Greek goddess—he was that hopeless and pathetic; it was depressing.

“What is your type then?” Murphy asked. “Tall, lanky dudes with  horrible sense of humour?” he wiggles his eyebrows at him, which earned him a shove from him. “I was kidding... you’re not my type, sorry.”

“No, but seriously, since I can remember you always went for brunettes, or bleached hair woman.” Lincoln said, leaning forwards in the armchair.

Shit, they were going to make him say it.

“There was also Echo back in freshmen year, and she was a psychopath who didn’t want to leave you alone.” Murphy replied, bringing out the worst memories from that year for Bellamy. “Not so sure in what category she’s in.” he trailed off, actually thinking it through.

Bellamy groaned, knowing that the two of the assholes he was unfortunately friends with weren’t going to just leave it at that. “Short, angry and feisty blondes. That’s all  y’all gonna get.” he sighed.

Suddenly, it was like something broke inside of John Murphy, almost like a light has ignited in him with realization—he blinked a couple of times, looked at Lincoln, then back at floor in front of him, then at him, blinking some more—a sleazy smile creeping in the corners of his mouth.

“Knew it!” he exclaimed, squirming in his seat like a  five year old that just got some candy handed to him. Lincoln made a face of confusion at the man. “Clarke fucking Griffin. I’m right aren’t I?”

“Wait, the girl you spent Thanksgiving with, that Clarke?” Lincoln asked him.

“There aren’t many Clarkes out there.” he replied, exhausted by the both of them.

“ _ You spent Thanksgiving with her?! _ ” Murphy screeched, standing up from where he was sitting. “How did I not know about this?” he asked, and Bellamy put of his hands on his face, waiting for the storm that was an excited John Murphy to calm down—it was a rare sight.

“Never came up.” he stood up, ignoring Lincoln and Murphy’s protests. “I’m going to my bedroom, to sleep. Wake me up if there’s something on fire.”

He ignored another wave of protests from his friends, going back to his bedroom and closing the door behind him. He was trying to relax for the first time since Thanksgiving, all his essays were handed in, and the next shift at the bar was tomorrow evening, and having Murphy at his apartment wasn’t going to give him the relaxation he needed. Sometimes he wished he’d live alone and have no friends whatsoever, or maybe less obnoxious ones, but he got stuck with the two idiots in his living room.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

“I’m telling you, Raven. I am fine.” she sighed, throwing her bag that was filled with too many books; her shoulder was aching.

“Well if I had Bellamy’s phone number, then maybe I could call him, so he could keep  and eye on you.” she answered, and Clarke swears she could see her sly smirk in front of her.

“No!” she snapped, and then calmly continued. “He doesn’t need to be my babysitter, just because you’re my mother’s minion that does everything for her, even caring for her own daughter part.” she huffed out.

“Clarke, listen. Abby has a lot of work, being the chief surgeon and all that. You know that, so stop acting like a child.”

“Then stop treating me like one.” this conversation was monotone, always the same problems between her mother and her (plus Raven for some reason). “I’m done with you stalking me everywhere I go, yes, I had a really rough ending of high school, and beginning of college because of everything that has happened with my dad, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to jump right into that hole, just because something bad happened, like failing a test.”

“That’s not it, and you know it. Your mom has told you countless of times how easy it is to go back – an unhealthy coping mechanism that’s what it is.” Raven sighed, like she was the one who was tired of this whole thing. Without a word, Clarke hung up, putting her phone in the farthest place, so that she wouldn’t be able to reach for it.

Just because she had a bad day, or plural; days. Didn’t mean she was going to stop eating, or throw up the food she ate — she wasn’t like that anymore, she had healthy coping methods, she had a healthy life, healthy relationships with people; this was nothing like what happened after Jake’s  death. Not being able to talk to Bellamy was still hard on her, and she was still trying to not feel the excitement when a notification pop up in her phone.

Their talks were always calming, even though she’s never talked about her real problems to him, Clarke always had the feeling of being safe whenever he was around, even if they only bickered and discussed stupid tv shows that were playing on her laptop. Now she didn’t have that anymore, and she needed to live with that.

Those two months of knowing him, but she felt like years have passed the last time she saw him – she never experienced this kind of feeling around anyone, not Finn, not Raven, maybe not even Wells. This feeling that even though she didn’t know everything about Bellamy, she always felt like she did. This weird bubble they were in, that was comforting.

But as usual, he was friendly, sending her memes, or texting to hang out, but the radio silence after his half joking half serious text was the last  time she ever interacted with him in some way – and he didn’t try to contact her more. It was for the best.

Then she heard the notification sound from her phone, and she couldn’t help herself – she quickly grabbed the phone.

[John Murphy] 4:58pm: Buy beer, and come to my place.

She scrunched her eyes at the message, maybe he texted the wrong person?

[Clarke Griffin] 4:59pm: Wrong number?????

[John Murphy] 4:59pm: Clarke Elizabeth (I think that’s your middle name) Griffin, will you honour me with you presence at my palace, and bring ALCOHOL??????

[John Murphy] 5:00pm: we need to talk, just come over.

[John Murphy] 5:00pm: Please?

[Clarke Griffin] 5:01pm: How can I say no to John begging me to come?

[John Murphy] 5:01pm: It’s Murphy, and  ew that sounded so dirty

She visually cringed at her message to him, and texted a quick ‘Be there in ten’ message to him, getting ready. Well, at least she could get drunk with him – one of the least healthy coping methods, but that was what everyone was doing, right?

She called an Uber, seeing as she would probably crash at his place or come back to hers drunk; that was how most of their ‘let’s get drunk and complain about everything’ nights went – with alcohol in her hand, which the driver already has given her a weird look, but she only glared at him, with a sweet smile nonetheless.

The drive seemed to be quicker, seeing as the streets weren’t busy at this time in the day, which was weird – she thanked the driver, who didn’t give her a tiny smile even, well that was going to have a huge impact on the one star she was going to give the  judgy asshole. She skipped towards Murphy’s house, opening the doors, as they were already opened.

“You do realize that someone can steal all your stuff, or even kidnap you if you keep your doors unlocked at all times, right?” she asked raising her voice; not knowing in what past of the house he was exactly. 

“You realize that I don’t give a fuck?” he shouted back, coming into her line of view – he had a dark green hoodie of the college they were attending, that was probably not washed since he’s bought it – typical.

“ So what’s the occasion?” she ignored his snarky remark, going to his couch that has been through too many things to count—Murphy slumped besides her.

“Oh, nothing. You know just the fact that the two of you never said that you spent Thanksgiving together.” she took a sharp breath, Bellamy probably told him, but why? “Bellamy wasn’t so keen on telling me, but Lincoln let it slip, so don’t be mad at him.”

“It doesn’t matter.” she answered, shrugging. “We don’t talk anymore.”

Murphy scoffed besides her. “And why’s that.”

“Just drop it and let’s get drunk.” she snapped, which after a while Murphy gave her a nod, and handed her the cheap beer he always had in his fridge for some reason—the whiskey and more expensive stuff was for later.

Drinking her pain away wouldn’t help at all, because there was this big possibility she’d start confessing to Murphy out of all people, about the deal with Bellamy; she’d regret that the first thing in the morning, but now she didn’t give a single fuck about that – she just wanted to let go.

And so she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we saw kind of how Clarke and Bellamy separately are after their 'break up' slash 'Clarke doesn't want to be a burden to Bellamy so she cuts him off' and how they cope with that. Both of them have issues as its said in the tags, so it's not going to be easy on both of them.
> 
> I've always wanted to write a fic where we see the perspective of the both of them, and how they get through tough times, and OBVIOUSLY they're better together, the problem is that they still don't know about that.
> 
> Anyways, I hoped you enjoyed <3


	7. Watch me unfold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took me awhile to write. My apologies for the wait. And if anyones asking, I do know how to end this story in 10 chapters, so don't worry about leaving this fic not finished :)
> 
> I took the title from the Alina Baraz's Unfold song, because of how fitting it seemed to be with everything happening in this chapter, and trust me, it's a lot.

She woke up with the biggest headache someone could get— or so she thought; after looking at Murphy laying on the armchair besides the couch she was sleeping on, his hair and aspiring something alike a beard have seen better days. The night before was blurry for her, only remembering the fact that Murphy wanted to get drunk, she wanted to have a stress relief, and somehow they got black out drunk. 

Her clothes were on, so they didn’t do anything above complaining about their miserable lives as students – if you could even call John Murphy a student, he was more of a guest in classes, passing everything he needed to the bare minimum, but not bothering to try for more. 

“I feel like this is it. I’m going to die out of alcohol poisoning.” he answered, shielding himself with his arm thrown on his face from the light streaks breaking through the cheap curtains. She snorted, standing up visibly slow, she was not going to run to the bathroom to puke, she was not going to... 

“I’m going to puke.” suddenly she fled to the bathroom, dropping to her knees and throwing up her guts out – if Murphy was going to die from alcohol poisoning then she was going to die from the tiredness she was feeling in every limb. After puking for a solid two minutes, she got up and went back to the living room, where she found her friend still laying in the same position he was when she left him. 

“I need to go back to my apartment.” she answered, yawning loudly just to piss him off. He flicked her off, and she chuckled – Murphy was never a lightweight, but he always seemed to have the worst hangovers after; this was example A. 

“You’re leaving me to die alone, rude.” he grumbled, still not bothering to look up at her. “What was the reason we drunk so much, that I don’t have the ability to stand?” he asked, and scrunched up her nose in response – to be honest, she had no fucking idea why. 

She was just thinking about all the problems in her current life – her mother being angry at her for leaving so early, not responding to any of Raven’s texts, Bellamy becoming simply one of her closer friends in a really short span of time, and her losing her the same fast way she found him, not counting that her father’s death anniversary was coming—wait. 

“What day is it, Murphy?” she asked, suddenly her worry overtaking any nausea she felt seconds before, he grumbled something she couldn’t catch. “What did you say?” 

“I said, it’s December 19th.” he answered, and her body had gotten rigid, her eyes widening, her eyes now pools filled with tears. “Why are you asking?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” she answered, shakily throwing her jacket on, and going out of the house. She missed it, yesterday was her father’s sixth year anniversary since he’s died and for the first time she missed it – she couldn’t breathe properly, she felt as her legs were about to give up on her in anytime, and she had no one to call to at least drive her up to the cemetery, it was six hours away. 

She ordered an Uber that got there in ten minutes – a guy named Ben, greeted her with a tired, but a smile nonetheless but she wasn’t able to return it, she gave him the address, and they drove off in the direction of her apartment. She tried to not give the guy any anxiety or trauma by seeing her break down in his car, so she pushed her tears aside, and looked out of the window with a stern look. 

“You alright, Miss?” he asked, breaking her out of her trans of ‘admiring’ the picturesque. She realized they’d reached the destination, and she only nodded and got out of the car, remembering to give him five stars for not asking any more questions than necessary. 

When she got to her apartment she didn’t know what to do, everything felt so wrong – her dad dying was the most important thing on her mental list of ‘the worst things that ever happened to me’, and she didn’t bother to even go up to his grave and buy some cheap roses, she couldn’t even do such easy thing, and she failed him. 

The sob ripped out of her before she knew it, she dropped to her knees in the middle of the living room, putting a hand over her mouth; trying to silence her cries, knowing it didn’t do anything. Her mother would be so mad at her now, telling her how she always remembered and this was the first time since her dad’s death that she’s failed to do the bare minimum for him. That she didn’t care enough for him, but she blamed her for moving on with someone else. She just knew the exact words Abby would use, and the send Raven her way to calm her down, but at the same time excuse her mother’s words, making her the bad guy. It was fucking hilarious just how well she knew how the situation was going to go on the next time they would talk. 

Her sobs silenced, but she still was shaking uncontrollably, she couldn’t stop. _Think of the good things in your life_ , she thought to herself. 

_Jasper and Monty;_ the two goof balls but also basically geniuses in anything connected with science – cheering her up by throwing Cheetos at her head, and talking about the weirdest stuff, ranging from ‘if cats can have depression, then can they also have ADHD’ to ‘killing people is a bad thing in general, if you’re taking pleasure from it then you’re a psychopath’. 

_Uncle Will;_ always cheering her up when she couldn’t play any sport, because she had a broken leg for weeks. Being the only person that actually cared for her as a person, not taking pity as everyone else did. Making her head spin with the new conspiracy theories he’s heard about, and the fights with other uncles about the most trivial things in the world just to make her smile. 

_Even Murphy;_ the jackass that liked to get drunk, and never stopped her from making stupid decisions – never taking pity on her, or making sad eyes when she was sad; just telling her to ‘get the fuck up, and do something’, but hugging her in the darkest times, even when he didn’t know about anything; he was always there, maybe as a background person in her life, but a true friend. 

She smiled to herself, the faintest smile, but a smile nonetheless – she was calming down, but it still wasn’t enough, something was missing and deep inside of her, she knew what it was; _Bellamy, Bellamy, Bellamy_ ; the constant voice in her mind spoke. _Bellamy, Bellamy, Bellamy_. 

Suddenly she tried being strong, she grabbed her phone, and as if a miracle happened; saw a message from Bellamy Blake: 

{Bellamy_Blake006} 2.00pm: You know the Romans basically stole almost everything from Greeks, just making it better and changing the names of the gods for example. 

She called him right away... 

After the first ring, as if he was ready for her to call – Bellamy answered. 

“Hey, thought you died on me.” he joked, his voice happy; she could _hear_ him smiling now. Another sob got out of her, not being able to silence it this time. “W- what’s wrong, Clarke?” he asked worriedly. 

“I- I can’t... Bellamy, I-” 

“It’s okay, just take a deep breath.” 

“My d- dad’s anniversary was yesterday, and I- and I missed it.” she stuttered out. 

“I’m coming over, just stay there, okay? Everything will be alright, I promise.” he quickly said, and she was about to make a noise in disagreement, but decided against it – she knew Bellamy’s protective nature; she knew he wasn’t going to let it go. 

“Okay.” she answered, her voice so small, she hung up after, probably the wrong move, but she needed to at least get her smudged make up off, that made her look like a witch or worse even – she knew Bellamy didn’t give a single fuck if she had make up or not, he’s seen her when she was on the balcony after crying after probably another unmeaningful thing. 

She wrapped a blanket around her, and laid down on the couch, but before that opening the doors lock so he could come in, without her going to the door – it was probably unsafe, really dangerous actually, but she didn’t care; she couldn’t care less if someone would steal her stuff, the only thing on her mind was her dad’s anniversary, that _she_ missed. 

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ 

When Bellamy first heard Clarke’s face light up on his screen, he answered right away the giddiness overtaking his mind; he was almost jumping from happiness at this point – maybe his stupid jokes actually worked this time, and it wasn’t even a joke, just a stupid history fact that the American education system probably didn’t learn. 

But when he heard her stuttering voice, and the sobs, his heart fell to his stomach – she wasn’t in the state to tell him to happen. The fear that something could happen came over him, his paranoia was worse than before because now he knew something was really wrong. He didn’t ask if he could come over, he decided to; he wasn’t going to leave her. 

He stumbled to his car, his hands shaking slightly, but it wasn’t that bad that he couldn’t drive – he drove to her apartment, trying to calm himself down. 

When he found himself at her door, he didn’t bother knocking as it was already slightly open – dark thoughts went through his mind in that moment, _did she not care, at all_? There were so many kidnappings happening around the world, and mostly in America, and she let her door opened, fully knowing how her landlord was the biggest creep. 

He didn’t hear her at first, coming closer to the living room he finally heard her uncontrollable sobs, and heavy breathing – he didn’t want to startle her, so he slowly made his way to her; when she finally saw him, he let out a breath of relief, she was safe and maybe not fine, but not in any danger. 

“Hey, Clarke.” he said, his voice only above a whisper, she shook her head, putting her head in her hands, hiding the tears from him. He knew there was nothing to tell her to calm her, because he knew the hysterical state she was in right now all too well. 

“I shouldn’t have called you.” she murmured, probably expecting for him not to hear it, and he almost didn’t because of her cracked voice and stuttering. 

“Clarke, I’m glad you called me.” he reassured – she didn’t bother looking up at him in that moment either, but he could see how her shoulders tensed up after him saying that, she probably felt even worse for calling him in that moment. 

“You don’t mean that.” she replied. Her voice still cracked, but stern – almost as if she was ordering him around, the damn Princess. 

“I do, I’m your friend and I’m always going to be there for you.” he said, he wasn’t surer of anything than in that moment – he’s never wanted for her to hide her feelings from him, that was never his intention, he wasn’t sure what he did wrong in the past for her to shut him out, only calling him when it has gotten this bad with her. “Clarke, please look at me.” 

She slowly looked up at him, her face blotchy, red and her cheeks tear stained – she has never looked this _real_ to him. The always composed, organized and stern princess was no longer there in her eyes; this was the true Clarke Griffin. The one that never showed her true colours to anyone. 

“You really don’t mean that.” she answered, shaking her head slightly at him. “You’re going to regret saying that, after knowing everything, Bellamy. Everyone always does, let’s not kid ourselves.” her expression blank, the tears were still there, but he could see how hard she was trying to put a mask on, shielding herself from him. 

This time it was Bellamy who shook his head, narrowing his eyes at her. He put two of his fingers under her chin, so she would still look at him in the eyes. “Don’t shut me out. Trust me, anything you’ll say will never make me not want to help you, or let you go.” 

“It already did.” she muttered, pushing away from him. “The kiss? Maybe it was a mistake, but...” she took a deep breath, calming down a little. “But you didn’t need to shove my eating disorder as the main issue, because, _trust me_ , I know.” 

His chest ached so much; his head spinning, like someone hit him so hard he couldn’t see what was happening around him – she looked so small – scared of what was going to happen next. She ignored his texts, calls, because she didn’t want to come out as an inconvenient problem for _him_ . Everything seemed to explain itself, the dots connected, and Bellamy swore he’d felt some of the tension fall from shoulder; only to be replaced by an agonizing pain in his chest, and heart of what he’s done, and how in the end – it was _his_ fault. 

It felt, like he was reliving the moment in front of him – his mother blaming him for being born, for just being there – him shutting her off, doing what she wanted him to do, and him coming into the house to see her already dead. Octavia blaming him for how her whole life is, how he’s overprotective – him accepting that his sister is grown up, and letting her live her own life just to see her move to another continent, and sending him pictures without captions of different animals and city views. 

Him always letting people let him change him. 

“Is that why you ignored me?” he asked, making sure. After a while she gave him a small nod. “I- I didn’t mean it like that. “ she scoffed. _“I didn’t.”_

“Well, what did you mean? Because it seemed clear to me.” She answered, her voice wasn’t filled with venom as he expected, but he could see how hurt she was. He took a deep breath. 

“Your uncle told me that, and when we kissed – it just didn’t feel right, not that it was bad, but the whole time after it, the only thing I could think that I was lying to you about knowing this – and that, felt wrong.” he said. 

“So you said that only to get it out off your chest?” she asked, even more confused then before. 

“Kind of, but not in the bad way.” he quickly added. “I needed to tell you that I knew, because it didn’t seem fair to you... if – if there would happen something more than friendship between us.” he murmured, this time him being the nervous one – she shook her head, looking on the floor. 

She sniffed, not looking at him, but at the painting above her TV. “I don’t know what you expect me to say right now, Bell.” she answered, shaking her slightly. He didn’t know either; the situation was a big misunderstanding, because of his stupid mouth. 

“If - if you want, we could get to know each other.” he replied, seconds later wanting to himself in the head repeatedly, after how stupidly he put it. Clarke didn’t seem to get it the wrong way – she nodded after a while of thinking, thank god. 

“And what do you mean by that, exactly?” she teased, but there were still tears falling from her eyes. “You know, so I won’t understand it the wrong way.” 

“Apart from the obvious, we don’t know each other that well, not the serious stuff, I mean.” she stiffened besides him. “And I don’t want you to feel somehow obliged to tell me everything, but if you want me, then I’m always going to be on your side, not matter what.” he replied. 

“This should come naturally.” she said, scoffing silently; she turned to look at him. “The talking about serious things, and we need to talk about it... it just feels weird, not natural.” He understood what she meant – the usual sad talks, or honest moments happened in relationships after a while of knowing each other, while the both of them needed to fuck it up after not even half a year of knowing one another. 

He saw her wrapping the blanket around her tightly, probably uncomfortable with all of this, and he could understand why – he was never the one to pour his heart out to anyone for that matter, and now they were talking about knowing each other; Bellamy still wasn’t sure if she even wanted to see him after this. 

“Maybe, but I think we’re both fucked up in some way, as everyone else is. Some are more, some are less.” he sighed. “And this stupid mistake I made of telling your uncle that we knew almost everything about each other fucked this up, and I hate it.” he answered – she nodded, looking down. “I hate that you didn’t have the choice to tell me, and that I found out about this way, I’m so sorry, Clarke.” 

“It happened; we can’t move back in time.” she answered. “But... I – weirdly and hopelessly – need you for some reason, I can’t fathom, yet.” she added. 

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I also need you for some strange reason.” he tried to make a joke, but it came out more serious. Clarke nodded, clenching her jaw – as if she was bracing herself for something; the intrusive thoughts inside of him didn’t help, expecting the worst to come from her mouth. 

She took a deep breath. “On December 18th my dad died, exactly six years and one day ago, and I instead of visiting my mom, to go with her to the graveyard; I got black out drunk with Murphy.” she said, her voice small; she looked so small in this moment. “Every year, even though my mother and I have a shitty relationship, we always came to visit him on that day, and I got drunk.” the sobs ripped out of her, sending her into chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, while she cried. 

“It’s okay, you’re okay.” he whispered into her hair, where his head was laying. She shook her head – and he knew she was going to blame herself for it, because that’s what he always does after the smallest mistakes, and for some reason he felt that the two of them weren’t that different, after all. “Was there a reason you got drunk, Clarke?” he asked her, after she calmed down a little; she shrugged. 

“Murphy invited me to hang out with him, he asked me about the two of us spending thanksgiving together, and then I just wanted to forget about everything – my mom and her new boyfriend, bulimia... you.” he felt his chest tighten, the ache in it didn’t help, but he knew that in order to work this out they needed to he brutally honest with each other – even if it hurt him. 

Suddenly, a thought – a bad one – came to his mind. 

“Did you two...?” he asked, unable to even stutter the full sentence out of himself. Her eyes widened, after she realized what he meant. 

“God, no.” she exclaimed. “We only drank.” she answered. 

“Okay.” he felt relief, but the pain was still there – he was still one of the reasons why she got drunk, why she missed her dad’s death anniversary. _He was the reason_. “I’m sorry for making things difficult for you, I really am.” 

“You have nothing to be sorry about, Bellamy.” she snapped suddenly, starting to get angry, if the glare she was shooting him was anything to go by. “Yeah, my uncle told you about my eating disorder, but you didn’t hide the fact that you knew away from me, maybe you said it at the wrong time, when I was fucking vulnerable and understood it the wrong way, but can you blame me? You said that after we kissed, as an excuse for that to not go any farther from that, but other than that, you didn’t do anything bad.” she said, sighing. “I’m an adult, I chose to get drunk because of everything that was happening in my life, and yes you were a part of that, but that was only because I didn’t want to be honest with you, and instead of telling you; like a normal person, I hid it from you, making it even harder for me to get over it.” 

She breathed harshly, probably tired from her little speech. It made him sigh in relief, the ache in his chest wasn’t as much as it was before. He saw her point of view, and even though he still disagreed with her, knowing that it was his fault, how he left things with both of them, he couldn’t express how thankful he was, after Clarke told him all of that. 

“We can get through this.” he said, surely; she shot him a confused look. “Step by step.” 

“Is that your emotional talk?” she teased, and he shoved her slightly away from him. “Very emotional.” she exclaimed, wiggling her eyebrows at him. He was glad that she wasn’t at least thinking about her dad now. 

“Okay, I have one question though. Why did you think I wouldn’t want to be around you?” he asked. 

“I know from experience. My ex, Finn Collins, after I told him he grew really distant with me, and the next thing I knew I found out he was cheating on me. Uh, he said it was my fault that I wasn’t willing to be with him often. I was in a really bad place then, the bulimia and other shit was getting really bad, and Finn always thought with his dick anyways.” she shrugged. 

It made him furious – Finn was with one of the best people he knew in his life, and cheated on her because she was struggling with everything in her life? _How much of an asshole, low-life and the absolute idiot did you need to be, to cheat on a girl like Clarke?_ He thought to himself. The overprotective side of him wanted to find Finn and beat the shit out of him for treating her like that, but then he saw that it would mean he’d leave her, and in the state, she was – he would never leave her side now. 

“He’s the scum of earth, you know that?” he said, his question more rhetorical than ever, but she gave him a nod – it wasn’t enough, he saw how unconvinced she was by his statement. “You did nothing wrong, you have to know that, Clarke.” 

“Maybe, but maybe not.” she answered, sighing. “I told him about my bulimia the night when he tried to try anything... I – I was too weak and tired, so I told him, and he made this disgusted face, asking me questions how I could force myself to puke among others. I wasn’t texting me, I was being cold towards him when he tried to force me to eat, I was a burden for him, so I wasn’t that surprised in the end when he went to someone else.” she shrugged. 

He couldn’t believe how she thought any of that douchebag’s actions were redeemable for her, how she looked to lowly of herself. “You know that’s a bunch of bullshit.” he said, glaring at her, but not being angry exactly at her, but at the way she looked at herself; how she couldn’t see how much more worth she was. 

“I don’t need you to praise me for being a cold bitch to almost to everyone.” she said, still not getting what he meant exactly by that. 

“You really can’t see yourself the way I see you.” he sighed. “You were hurting, and from seeing the way your mom is, she wasn’t around, you were alone. And Finn being your boyfriend, should’ve been by your side, even if you weren’t open with him about everything, he should’ve been there every step of the way, and he wasn’t and that’s on him being a fucked-up person. You did nothing wrong.” he prodded; he wasn’t going to let her blame herself for something that wasn’t her fault. 

“You didn’t know me back then, Bellamy. I didn’t make snarky jokes, or any jokes for that matter. I wasn’t responding to texts, I wasn’t going to parties, I wasn’t nice to people most of the time, I wasn’t-” 

“ _Stop_.” he said, cutting her off. “You were hurting, and your mother, Finn and people around you instead of helping you get through it, they left you, and that’s their fault. They were and are the villains her, not you.” 

“I didn’t reach out to them, and that’s my fault.” she said. 

“You kept every bad thing inside, and that’s one of the ways people deal with bad things happening to them. Maybe it’s not healthy, and trust me, I would know that, but it still doesn’t mean that it’s your fault people that you cared about betrayed you, leaving you to deal with it alone.” 

She sighed, probably too tired to fight him – he wasn’t going to let it go, if she would, and both of them knew that. “The only person I can blame is my mom, honestly. If that makes you feel better.” she said. 

“You should blame all of them in my opinion.” he sighed. 

“Well I don’t hold a grudge long.” he raised his eyebrows – seeing as she didn’t want to talk to him for weeks. “Okay, well. If I’m being honest even though you didn’t mean it, somehow, me thinking that you didn’t want anything to do with me hurt me more than what all of them have done.” 

The ache in his chest started all over again. 

“I just – you were the first person after years, that felt like I could tell you everything, so when I got it in my head after that night that you didn’t want to talk to me - even though you did – it really hurt me.” she said. “This is probably the first time I’m being so honest in a conversation, wow.” she giggled, and he chuckled too. 

“Me too.” he said. “That’s a step in the right way, I guess.” 

“Yeah.” she said. “Okay, can we please do something else than me pouring my heart out here?” 

“Of course. Do you feel better, though?” he asked, and she nodded. It felt a little bit unfair how she told him a lot of things, but he didn’t tell her almost anything – _there was time for that_ , a voice told him. They were going to make this the right way. 

“Wanna marathon Harry Potter?” she asked. 

“Please no.” 

“Glad we’re agreeing.” she ignored him, and put the first part on the television. 

“Brat.” he grumbled, when she settled in his arms – after everything, it didn’t feel weird for them to cuddle, it just made sense. She poked him in the ribs, which earned her a glare from him, she couldn’t even see it as her head was laying on his chest. 

“Thank you, though.” she said, her voice barely something above a whisper, he almost didn’t hear it. 

“Thank you, for not shutting me out.” he whispered, and she nodded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me being an aquarius, was hating this whole thing while I wrote this, because of how I hate writing anything that's overly emotional, but I though it fit for the both of them to be honest with e/o, and talking about Clarke. I didn't delve into Bellamy's story almost at all, but do not fear, I'm not Jason, and it will be fully revealed to Clarke.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this <3


	8. Wonderful person

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So the best thing to text her was a fucking ‘you up?’ Text?!” He shouted, and Murphy made his way quickly out of the room. “John Murphy, I swear to god—“
> 
> “You don’t need to thank me! I just came here for the beer in your fridge.” He shouted back. He suddenly got a notification from Instagram.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have jealousy, anger, and we have Clarke being the badass she is in the ending. All that in only a 4,7k chapter. I may or may not have rushed a bit (I mean a lot) with the things escalating. I'm sorry, and I hope you'll enjoy reading this.

A week later Bellamy’s phone still laid on his nightstand untouched, with no new notifications coming (the only ones were to water his cactus, Dereck). Lincoln kept talking him out ofgiving her space one night, when Bellamy slumped down on the couch, complaining how he’s missed her, even though they were okay now. 

_“You need to get your shit together, and talk to her, like a normal human being.” Lincoln snapped. “Your ‘little’ crush as you like to put it, is getting out of hand.”_

_Bellamy slapped his shoulder, ignoring his remarks. “I do not have a crush on her.”_

_“And the progress we’ve made was ruined.” Lincoln muttered sarcastically, earning him a groan from Bellamy. “You’re moping after a girl whom you’ve already talked, making amends or whatever the fuck you two did.”_

_“We’re good, but I don’t know how to talk to her, or be around her without hurting her again. And the last time I did that unknowingly.” He whispered, watching Animal Planet on their TV in the living room. Lincoln scoffed, getting up and bringing two beers, handing him one of them._

_“If you’d tell me what it was about, then maybe I would be able to help you in some way.” He proposed, and Bellamy’s head shot up shaking it._

_“No.” He said quickly. “It’s between us, and you’ve never even been in a relationship.”_

_“Aha! So you think it’s a relationship with blondie and you.” He said excitedly like a toddler getting a toy he wanted for the longest time._

_“Don’t call her that.” He said. “It’s friendship, that’s what’s between us.”_

_“Yeah, if my female friend would have a fight with me, I wouldn’t be so heart broken about it.” Lincoln said. “But believe what you want to believe, Bellamy.”_

Bellamy’s mind from that moment went spinning—overthinking every word he’s said to her that night. On the brighter side, his nightmares weren’t as frequent as before, because of the amount of time he’s spent freaking out over Clarke; he hasn’t opened his text messages with Octavia in almost a week now.

“This is unhealthy, man.” Murphy sighed looking down at him laying in his bed, watching his phone, but not touching it to check new texts he’s got — there weren’t probably any.

“I’m not doing anything.” He sighed.

“Yeah, that’s the problem.” Murphy said, grabbing his phone — Bellamy made a noise of frustration, sitting up to snatch it from his friend, but it didn’t help; Murphy kept typing something on his phone, and panic seized inside of him, knowing damn well who he was probably texting now in his name.

“Murphy, give me my phone.” He growled, but the guy didn’t make any move to give it back, holding up his finger for him to wait.

“And done.” He threw it at him. “Clarke would never be the first one to text you, because she’d probably be too scared to fuck it up with you.” 

“So the best thing to text her was a fucking ‘you up?’ Text?!” He shouted, and Murphy made his way quickly out of the room. “John Murphy, I swear to god—“

“You don’t need to thank me! I just came here for the beer in your fridge.” He shouted back. He suddenly got a notification from Instagram.

_@CGriffins posted a story, first time in awhile._

He unlocked his phone, going to Instagram and looking that there actually was a new story from her. When he opened it, his faced felt hot and flushed— she posted a meme. _When a guy texts you ‘you up?’ Instead of ‘good morning, beautiful’_ accompanied with a close up of someone’s scrunched up face. He knew she was talking about him.

_[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:06am: It’s not morning anymore, Beautiful._

_[CGriffins] 10:06am: So he knows how to text!_

_[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:06am: Funny_

_[CGriffins} 10:07am: Wassup?_

_[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:07am: MURPHY SENT THAT TEXT NOT ME_

_[CGriffins] 10:08am: Did it hurt when you fell from heaven shawty_

He groaned out loud.

_[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:08am: Shawty? Cheesy pick-up lines?_

She didn’t answer straight away, which gave him chills down his spine — he didn’t write anything bad necessarily, but it still made him a little bit nervous.

_[CGriffins] 10:15am: Wanna meet up at Kane’s?_

_[Bellamy_Blake006] 10:16am: Sure, is 6 alright?_

_[CGriffins] 10:17am: Yeah, I have a couple things to sort out, see you there :)_

Bellamy smiled to himself, at least his day wasn’t that bad — he was still worried - about a lot of things - but it was usual for him. He decided on a maroon t-shirt that Miller kept complaining about him not returning it to him — it was too big for him, and on Bellamy it was perfect, it was the truth. Halfway through taking out the trash, he got a text message from Murphy, simply saying _good luck on your date ;)_. 

He furrowed his eyebrows, _How do you know about that? And it’s not a date_. He texted back.

_Clarke texted me, asking me to cancel her blind date with a girl from work I set her up with._

Bellamy’s jaw clenched, his chest ached for a couple of seconds, stopping in his tracks — he didn’t know what to exactly think. The first thought in his mind was that he ruined her date, but he reminded himself that it was her who proposed to meet up, then again, maybe she felt forced to meet up with him, seeing as it was the first time they interacted in some way after their talk that was going to _somehow_ make things better, which in reality didn’t change much. He still felt guilty for hurting her, and making her feel like she was a burden to him, which she couldn’t be, ever.

He was so glad she was in his life.

_Don’t overthink it, she was really giddy on the phone. She’s never giddy._ Murphy texted him, probably from his lack of response to the last text. He still felt guilty, even though, in retrospect, there wasn’t anything to feel guilty about.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Clarke’s day wasn’t any different from another, with the slight exception of actually talking to Bellamy after a week of radio silence, which she was confused about. The more she thought about, the more she felt as if he changed his mind, if he didn’t want to talk to her anymore — Jasper, even though he didn’t know they were close with each other, talked her out of it, saying how Bellamy was probably worried himself about the next move he wanted to make, and if it wasn’t a mistake if he’d call her. 

For guy who was in only one relationship back in high school, he was really helpful for some reason. S _ingle people always give good dating advice_ , she thought to herself.

So it was kind of a surprise when on Friday she got a text from him saying ‘you up?’, which yeah, she got a lot of those back in the day when Raven forced her into downloading Tinder — it lasted no longer than a week, before she deleted the app swearing to herself to never to talk about her love life to Raven of all people. On the next day she got a phone call from her mother, saying that she knows someone’s son that’s single — yeah, never talk with Raven about anything, because it would always somehow transfer to Abby.

She knew that Bellamy would get some kind of notification from her, when she posted a story on her Instagram, she turned it into a joke — thank god, he got it, and didn’t start being an asshole with a giant male ego. She knew he wasn’t like that.

Then she dumbly suggested to meet up at Kane’s diner, forgetting her blind date Murphy set up, playing matchmaker, on the same day she was going to meet with Bellamy. She didn’t care a lot about the person she was going on a date with — Clarke only knew that it was a female, and that she worked with Murphy, she cancelled it, calling Murphy that she was meeting with Bellamy. She only got a simple response from him; g _o with the red dress, makes your boobs look good, and Bellamy would love that_. She responded with a quick response of how she wasn’t dressing up for anyone to impress them.

Still, when it was 5:05pm, she started getting ready for not-date-with-Bellamy-whom-she-was-not-crushin-on. It was a small Diner on the side of a really busy road, so she wasn’t going to dress up specially for stuffing her face with pancakes, and talking with him — Bellamy’s already seen the vulnerable, all tears and smudged mascara her, but she was still nervous for some reason.

She decided on a simple gray sweater, dark jeans that clung to her like second skin, but were still somehow comfortable — it was a nice contrast to how big the sweater was. She didn’t do anything with her hair, keeping it down; it was getting too long for her like. Make up wasn’t drastic either, some mascara, she tried to do a nice cat eye look, but ended up looking like she just got through a crying session in her bathroom.

Kane’s diner wasn’t as far away as it seemed, she got there at 5:58pm, and saw that Bellamy was already sitting in a booth, playing with his fingers almost.., nervously? She smiled, seeing as she wasn’t the only one stressed out, and went to him.

“Hey.” She said, startling him a bit; he looked up and gave her a smirk. She sat on the other side of the booth.

“I already ordered the pancakes for us.” He replied instead of the classic ‘hi’— she chuckled, raising her eyebrows at him. “I mean…” he scratched the back of his neck; his usual tick whenever he was slightly nervous. “I thought we were going to hang out longer, so I ordered, so that you wouldn’t wait longer—“

“That’s alright, Bell.” She answered, putting a stop to his awkward rambling — Bellamy seemingly relaxed, his shoulders not as tense as they were before, thankfully. She could see he was still somewhat stressed, seeing as she was too. He was still a reminder to her, back to when she broke down in his arms, laying everything in front of him, without thinking twice, because even though they’ve known each other not even a year, yet. She trusted him. In the end, unlike everyone else, he didn’t leave.

“So how have you been?” He said, with a small smile on his lips.

“Good, since, you know…” she trailed off, still uncomfortable to talk about; still blaming herself for forgetting her father’s death anniversary. “I’ve been going to the gym more, trying to distract myself a little. It seemed like a better coping mechanism than vomiting.” She joked at the end, but it felt flat. “…Too early for jokes?”

Bellamy sighed, brushing his hair with his fingers. “I just don’t want you to be hurt because of me, Clarke.” He answered, a guilty expression on his face.

“Why would you hurt me?” She asked curiously, scrunching her eyebrows at him. Bellamy stayed silent for a moment, ignoring her eyes.

“The last time, and first time we fought was because I unknowingly made you feel, like you were a burden to me. I hurt you unintentionally.”

She felt achingly sad at the revelation in his answer — she would have never figured it on her own that he felt that way. Clarke knew she was partly to blame for it, because if she hadn’t jumped into conclusions straight away that night, and talked like a normal person to him then this would never happen in the first place. 

“I’m sorry.” She said, her voice not quite a whisper, but it still was cracked at the end. “We should’ve talked back then, and I did the complete opposite.”

“It’s not your fault, it was me who hurt you, because I was stupid.” He said, and she could see him getting slightly irritated with her blaming herself — the feeling was mutual.

“Then it’s both of your fault kids.” Kane went to stand in front of their table bringing them the pancakes, she flushed slightly, knowing that he’s probably heard the whole conversation; she wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or offended. “There’s this saying, something about it takes two to fuck up things.”

She blushed even more, this time a shocked expression on her face. “I don’t think… I’ve never seen you curse.” She mumbled, looking up to see Bellamy’s cheeks redden. The two of them didn’t know what to answer, so they stared at the elder man giving them a warm smile.

“Eat your dinner, kids.” Kane walked back behind the bar, leaving them alone again.

“He’s… not what I expected him to be.” Bellamy said slowly, Clarke looked up at him and nodded, sighing — _the old man really was something else_ , she thought. “He’s like a dad, but not really?”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” She said, her mouth half filled with pancakes already, which made him let out a quiet chuckle with a fond expression on his face, as if there was anything pretty about her, when she was stuffing pancakes in her mouth, the real beauty of her really came out. She blushed, looking down at her plate, and then at his, seeing as he didn’t even as much as touch the pancakes on his plate. “You gonna eat, or?”

She must’ve startled him, because the next thing she saw Bellamy got to work with food on his plate, as if it was the last meal he would ever eat — this time it was her turn to laugh at him, and his flushed cheeks.

“The birds work for the government. Nice poster.” He said, looking behind her, she stared back, seeing the poster of a bird saluting to a dictator without a face — something only Kane would’ve added in his retro/vintage, whatever you’d want to call it, Diner.

“He’s really something else.” 

“Uh, huh.” He hummed. “Oh, and if Murphy starts bothering you ‘bout us, then tell me.” He said out of nowhere — she threw him a confused glance, asking not-verbally what he exactly meant by that. “It’s just… he said some shit about us being together, and I kind of ignored him, because it’s not his business—“ he trailed off.

“I get it, Murphy can be sometimes too much.” She said, eating up the rest of the pancakes, and drinking the lemon juice Kane also brought them (probably like a ‘it’s on the house’ type of thing). “No need to get all worked up by the dumb stuff he says.” She shrugged, hoping that the acting classes her mother forced her to go to back in middle school would actually pay off for once.

“Uh, Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” He sighed, tension between them growing. A silence fell between them for a couple of seconds, but then she heard the TV turn on, with daily news from CNN — basically the most depressing thing Kane could’ve put on in a Diner, but she wasn’t about to complain, seeing as Bellamy started one of his speeches about politics and the global warming situation. She never cared what he was talking about, because somehow he always would put history facts in his little ramblings; it would put her to sleep in a record time.

“I’m telling you, there’s never a good candidate to vote for. You always need to choose the greater evil. That’s science, Clarke.” He snapped, more mad at the Trump supporter shown on the screen, talking about another one of the useless arguments.”Trump is a fucking spawn of satan.” He mumbled, and she chuckled.

“Can’t disagree with you there, pal.”

He shook his head, getting more and more frustrated every second, and honestly — she preferred watching Bellamy Blake getting worked up over news, than a good, classic comedy at this point. This was her personal theatre. She loved it.

They continued with meaningless arguments over fictional characters, and politics. The latter was obviously her least favorite thing, since her mother was dating some guy who was a politician, or was he? She didn’t care enough to know, actually.

They broke of their heated debate over stupid pick-up lines, when she saw three cars park right outside the window they were sitting besides.

She heard a loud group of high schoolers stride into the diner, some with their hands around each others, some completely alone. As secretly as possible, she tried to roll her eyes at the way they weren’t ever trying to be quiet; all of them seemed to not give a flying fuck about anyone (only them actually) in the diner. Bellamy must’ve noticed, because the next thing she knew, she was being dragged by her hand towards the exit sending Kane a pitying look, which he responded with a warm smile (not surprising) on his face. “I know how you hate obnoxiously loud people, Princess.” Bellamy said, after they made their outside.

“It’s not like you’re a fan of them either.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and he nodded. “Wanna take the same Uber?”

“Sure.” She said, catching how hopeful his voice sounded — Bellamy ordered an Uber, letting her know a person named Kate would be here in 15 minutes.

When the Uber arrived, they were met with a woman, maybe a couple of years older than her, with a wide smile on her face inviting them in. The both of them sat in the back.

“Bellamy Blake?” The woman - Kate - asked, turning back, subtly looking him up and down.

“That’s right.” He answered, not even looking at the woman who made it out of her way to turn completely around to look at him; he was engrossed with something on his phone.

Kate nodded, turning back. “So I see I have two addresses here, the two of you going to separated homes?” She asked, with a sweet tone.

“Yes.” She answered for him, seeing as he was typing with someone almost aggressively on his phone, still. 

“Alright.”

The ride seemed to be longer than usual for Clarke, or maybe it was the fact that Bellamy was sitting not even a meter away from her, glancing from time to time at her, like she was going to disappear any minute now. The fact that Kate was subtly trying to flirt with him wasn’t making things better, when she knew Clarke was here, and for some reason, it almost seemed rude to mention for her to kindly stop doing it. 

She remembered that the woman wasn’t doing anything wrong technically — Bellamy was single, and she was a good-looking woman, (there was too much botox for Clarke’s taste, but she wasn’t the one the driver was interested in) that saw a handsome guy, _it made sense even,_ Clarke thought to herself.

“So, Bellamy.” Kate said, her voice a couple of levels higher than before, it was almost comical. Like from a Disney Movie. “What do you do for a living?”

Bellamy seemed startled (as he always did) by her question, and she knew how he didn’t like to talk about how he was working two different jobs to make ends, even if in Clarke’s mind it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, it was impressive, actually. “Um, I work at a bar part-time.” He answered.

“Oh, I love bars!” _Really?_ That was what she was going for? Even Clarke had better game than her, and her love life was from the beginning a big mess. Everyone loves bars, or maybe she was just an alcoholic, or maybe both.

Bellamy seemed oblivious to the fact that the woman in the driver’s seat was shamelessly flirting with him — he just gave her a small smile, ignoring her looking in the rearview a couple of times at him. For god’s sake, even she noticed that.

She knew that Bellamy was completely uninterested in the woman, seeing as he was ignoring her a couple of times, but she couldn’t stop the anger in her, when she would answer with a smile playing on his lips. And no, she was not being jealous about him talking with another woman, she was confused and maybe a little bit… sad, that she has never even tried to shoot her shot with him, before all of the baggage was thrown on the both of them, when they knew each other for such a short period of time. The last time they kissed, and the first time, it was a disaster, so yeah.

The car stopped, she looked up to see they were in front of Bellamy building. “I guess this is your place, sweetheart?” Kate piped in, smiling at her, and yeah, she hated her on principle— there was no coming back. Call her a jealous bitch, if you want.

“Actually, it’s mine.” Bellamy said, opening the door. “Text me when you get home.” He winked at her, and closed the door, waving at her too. She smiled, and looked back to see a annoyed looking Kate in front, her plan wasn’t going by her plan it seemed.

“Alrighty.” She said, her tone a couple levels deeper, as she was not trying to impress anyone here anymore. Clarke was grateful for that, because if she was going to hear her obnoxiously sweet tone, she was going to explode. “Your friends single?” She asked, glancing back at her.

“Not sure.” Clarke replied, mimicking the high tone.

Kate giggled quietly, as if there was a unspoken joke being told. “That doesn’t matter in the end.” She sighed, smiling to herself — the tone she was speaking in was enough of a pet peeve of Clarke’s, her talking about the unimportance if a guy had a girlfriend or not, when Kate obviously was interested was like spilling fuel to a already burning house ( _interesting metaphors_ , Clarke thought to herself).

Instead of snarling a backhand comment, she scoffed, trying to ignore the bubbly brunette in the front. 

“Is there something wrong?” Kate asked, blinking back in the rearview, as if she’s said something scandalous.

“Nope.” Clarke answered, looking out of the window.

For the rest of the drive, the two woman were silent; the only sound was coming out of the radio, that was on a pop station, playing some Katy Perry song. It was getting dark by the time she recognized her building a couple meters away from them, the car stopped, and Clarke didn’t even bother to listen to Kate — choosing to ignore her, and shutting the car door behind her, she has had enough, of this evening as it was.

_7:30pm_ , her phone showed when she unlocked it to check the time — the gym was open until 10pm on weekdays, and considering that it was in fact a weekday, she decided to quickly bring her gym clothes, and head over there. Her essays were still to be written - at least three of them - but she had writers block for the longest time, and being unproductive in front of a screen of her laptop wasn’t something she wanted to do in the moment. And, she hasn’t been to the gym in a couple of weeks.

It was almost empty, seeing as the two people were on the bench getting ready to leave, and one person on a treadmill, listening to music on her earphones. Clarke was relieved to find her favorite spot empty, as the gym was usually busy whenever she came in the mornings.

She didn’t realize when she was halfway done, when someone poked her on the shoulder roughly, turning around to see the one and only, Finn fucking Collins with a lazy smiles playing on his lips. If this day couldn’t be any worse.

“Hey.” He said. She continued to glare on him. How could he so randomly come up to her, when the last time they talked to each other was when she was screaming in his face, making sure he got it loud and clear when she told him she never wanted to speak with him — he didn’t, in the end.

“What are you doing?” She snarled, going to the changing room — at least he saw her when she was 80% done with her work out, the rest could wait for the morning. Finn followed her back, like a beaten puppy with a pout on his lips, as if it would make things better.

“I just wanted to ask you, how have you been. That’s all.” He threw his hands up in surrender, the expression on his face half sad and half smiling, which was a weird combo, yet Finn did that.

“And I told you, I never wanted to see you again.” She answered, not bothering to get a shower; she could do that at home, where he wouldn’t follow her, hopefully. The only good thing about Finn, was that she knew he wasn’t dangerous. She could easily beat him when his hands would wander anywhere near her.

“Oh, come on.” He whined, flipping his greasy hair from one side to another. “I thought we were past that, aren’t we?”

“Just because it’s been a while, doesn’t mean I want to talk to you, nor be friends with you.” She stated, ignoring his pleading stare. “Why are you here even? You hate gym.” 

“Decided to get some muscles, you know.” He smirked, looking at his arms, even flexing them a little — she scrunched up her face in disgust, seeing as there was nothing to flex.

“Great, now go back to working out, and leave me alone, Collins.”

She didn’t hear a response from him, quickly pulling her bag over her shoulder, waving to the guy behind the table, Jake? She didn’t know his name, but he always seemed to be worn out in here, like his life wasn’t miserable enough outside this gym, so she made sure to always give him a warm smile, because Clarke Griffin was a nice as fuck. 

She heard footsteps behind her, already knowing who it was. “I saw you with Blake a lot recently.” Finn said, running up to her. “Didn’t know you two were together.”

“We’re not.” She said. “And it’s not any of your business.” She snapped, getting frustrated with people assuming about them. First it was Murphy, then Bellamy’s friend, Lincoln, and now out of all people Finn.

“Wouldn’t want you slumming with him, it’s not a good look for you.” He muttered. She felt the anger rise up in her chest — she turned around, sending him a death glare.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!” She snapped loudly, enough to make a couple of eyes turn their way on them. 

“He has like what? Three jobs? And he still can barely make a living out of it.” Finn answered, as if working was something awful in his mind.

“And? Just because we grew up with rich parents, doesn’t mean all of us did. And that doesn’t make them worse than us.”

Finn scoffed. “Oh, Clarke.” He sighed. “Bellamy Blake is a fucking wrong choice for a boyfriend. The only thing he sees in you is the money he could get. Don’t be naive.” He scoffed once again, looking up and down at her. “At least I know you, because you know what? I already have money, I don’t need you to be my fucking income. Does he even know that you have bulimia? Cause I’m sure he’s going to up and leave before you know it, after telling h—“

He was cut off with a hard slap on his right cheek. She couldn’t believe how quickly he turned from a ‘sweet’ guy trying to get on her good side, to this — a spiteful and jealous man she wouldn’t recognize a year ago.

“He knows, and you know what?” She said, voice full of raw emotions, the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “He hasn’t left, and he never will. Because Bellamy’s the best person I’ve met in my life, and you can, and will never be even as a half of a person he is.” she pushed him away from her, letting the tears flow down her cheeks, before he could see.

She didn’t hear him run after her this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIRST OF ALL, I'm sorry for taking a long break from updating, online school is kicking my ass, and the whole quarantined with my family i had enough of situation is bad for my mental health <3
> 
> Anyways, we meet Finn in this chapter, and yes, I'm sorry for making him out to be the bad guy (I actually do like him, though), but he was perfect for the role of a cheating, piece of garbage ex-boyfriend. When I say a lot has happened in this chapter, I mean A LOT (at least for me to write). I decided to put it all together in here, meaning: Bellamy being anxious about Clarke, Murphy forcing him to text her, than doing it himself, them meeting up, Kane being Kane, Clarke being jealous over Kate the Uber driver, Finn harassing Clarke, and Clarke ENDING HIM, so yeah, a lot.
> 
> I swear to god, I wanted to make this fic a slowburn (and I kind of did), but I also want this to be fit into 10 chapters, and I'm already on chapter 8, so yeah, it's kind of a tight fit in here. Anyways x2, next chapter can or even will be kind of a time jump, so I'm warning you already ;)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this mess of a chapter (as if the others aren't a complete war zone messy already) <3


	9. I need you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot happens in this chapter (i think), so buckle up.

“I’m ordering sushi, you want anything?” Clarke asked Bellamy, who was currently laying on her couch watching reruns of The Simpsons — he wanted to graduate earlier in the year, writing two times the amount of essays and passing all of the exams his professors were throwing at him, this way he would graduate two months earlier than the rest of them; that was the deal he made with the Grad School he got in to be a professor, not just a teacher at a high school.

“Can you order something with chicken wings, I’m craving chicken wings.” He answered from the living room.

“So you’ve decided to act like a pregnant chick with weird cravings, huh.” She teased, already searching up the closest KFC, she was never a fan which Bellamy made a outrageous noise at that when he found out a couple weeks back.

“I’m already half-dead inside, unhealthy and roasted chicken isn’t going to make things worse.” She could hear the humor in his tone.

“Wanna go to the gym with me on Friday?” She asked — Murphy straight up ignored her when she suggested to work out with her, Jasper and Monty were to high to even comprehend what was happening when she asked, so Bellamy it was.

“When did you start going to the gym?” He asked, and she scoffed.

“I hate working out, but it’s my only way to get my anger out sometimes.” She said. “Plus, I like to be in shape. Raven’s doing when she made a backhand compliment about my boobs being big.” She said, and heard him choke on something. Clarke smirked, finalizing the order on KFC Delivery page.

“Oh, I thought you know, didn’t need to go to the gym for that…” he trailed off, making her roll her eyes — she hated how people always seemed to be scared to talk about it in front of her.

“You can say ‘eating disorder’ you know?” She said, and he nodded slowly. “And, no. To get back to being healthy I needed to throw on some weight, but it was a long process, getting used to my ‘new’ body, and all that stuff, so instead of throwing up to be skinny, I started going to the gym. Replacing the bad coping mechanism with a good one.” She replied, and this time she didn’t feel, like she was throwing all of it on him, and burdening it with him, instead it felt: freeing, almost.

“That’s actually really good, Princess.” He said, the nervous face changing to a grinning one. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks?” She said, unsure of what to say — she never knew how to take compliments.

“I mean, not like you needed to hear it, but… I’m— I would love to go to the gym with you.” He suddenly changed the topic, which she was grateful for — she knew he was glad with the progress she made, even if it was all in the past.

“Great.” She exclaimed. “I’m finally going to see where you got those muscles from.” With a teasing tone in her voice, she turned back to the kitchen, ignoring how she saw the tip of his ears go red when she glanced at him quickly.

She heard him chuckle, and up the volume and changing his focus onto The Simpsons. Clarke wasn’t exactly sure where the boldness came out, teasing him, and even trying to… flirt?

——————-

When Bellamy told Murphy, that Clarke and him wouldn’t be at the New Year’s party, he shook his head, but he saw something mischievous in his eyes. When he started wiggling his eyebrows at him, Bellamy lost it, telling him to fuck of, and that it wasn’t like that, which it wasn’t in reality. They just didn’t want to spend the new year’s eve with a bunch of drunk frat boys laying on the ground, as if already dead.

“Clarke never bails on me, dude. That’s love if she did that for you.” Murphy said, and Lincoln whistled, making this ten times worse than it needed to be.

“She hates your parties, Murphy.” He sighed, when Murphy scoffed, not believing him.

“She does not.” He muttered.

“Everyone who enjoys not being black out drunk, doesn’t like your parties, asshole.” He answered, earning himself a slap in the back of his head from Murphy. “Ow, I’m just telling the truth.” Another slap.

“He’s not wrong, Murph.” Lincoln said, coming into the room. “I enjoy your parties, though.”

“Yeah, because you think with your dick.” Murphy muttered. “Anyways, how are you and Clarke spending New Year’s together? Cuddling in bed, on the couch, talking to each other for the whole night, and staring into each other’s eyes, like two completely platonic friends do?”

“There’s an exhibit Clarke wanted to go to, and the final piece of it is shown at midnight, she’s going to love it.” Bellamy answered. He knew how Clarke loved art, but never had the time for, because of how pre-med was kicking her ass constantly — the fact that she was a double major, made his head spin with the amount of things she needed to do.

“So it’s a surprise?” Lincoln asked, and he nodded, a wide smile creeping up on his lips. “Is it after, or before that you’re going to confess your undying love for her? Or are you doing this just to touch her boobs?” He made a hand gesture, squeezing the air, mocking him.

“Shut the fuck up, Lincoln.” He growled. “I’m still confused as to why girls even want you.”

“You want a relationship with the blondie, I want to hook up with girls. There’s a difference.” He stated, and yeah he was right, Bellamy thought. “But for real, is this your little plot to talk with her?”

“About what?” He asked, already tired with the conversation — he didn’t get a lot of sleep, after sleeping yet another night on Clarke’s too small couch, she did insist for him to take the bed, and the invitation was so tempting, but he knew she didn’t mean to sleep with him, just sleep, she would take the couch, and he wasn’t enough selfish to do that to her back.

“Your crush on her.” Murphy answered for Lincoln, giving him a unimpressed glare — he wasn’t going to talk about his feelings with the two of them, especially not when they continued to make stupid jokes around Clarke, especially Murphy.

“There isn’t anything to talk about. She just had a rough couple of days, and I want to make her feel better.” He said — he wasn’t lying, Clarke’s dad anniversary really hit her, and even if he subconsciously made her forget about it, by focusing on resolving the problems between them, it didn’t help later in the following couple of days. To top that, he was extremely exhausted with the amount of work he needed to finish before graduating earlier, he needed a getaway, and a silent art gallery with his favorite person by his side, was a great idea.

“I’m interested if you’re going to tell yourself that after your little escapade on new year’s.” Murphy muttered, looking down. “You haven’t seen Clarke in a fancy gown, I even had a small crush on her when she walked down those crappy stairs in her building.” 

“I don’t need to see her in a dress, I already know she’s beautiful.” He sighed. He felt a pillow being thrown at him, and groans from the two men. 

“You’re a fucking sap, stop it.” Lincoln said, he stood up with not another word, leaving the two of them in the living room. Murphy kept staring at him curiously, like a cat getting ready to attack.

“What.”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, if you keep staring holes into me,” Bellamy replied. “Come on, out with it.” He gestured with his hands for Murphy to say anything.

“You don’t need to act like a dumbass in front of me, Blake.” Was the only response he got from him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He answered, he wasn’t going to pour out his heart to Murphy out of all people — when he knew the second he would say what he truly felt towards Clarke, Murphy would run straight to her and tell her everything, when she wasn’t even interested in him.

After a few minutes, Murphy stood up looking down at him. “Just… don’t be a coward.” He said, and left for the door. 

—————————

“I’m telling you, Bell.” Clarke exclaimed, her grin wide and cheeks slightly flushed. She waited for him until his class ended, gushing over something about a party, which was… strange, to say the least. “It’s not just some party, Blake.” She said, throwing a white robe on him, ordering him to dress up — there was even a leaf made crown waiting for him in the taxi that was waiting for them.

Turns out there was a party at Murphy’s (as he said before) which was going to probably be a disaster. He couldn’t oppose when the blonde besides him was so giddy about the whole thing. The two of them went inside only to see a small group of people, that he fairly knew from campus around a table — all of them turned around to look at the two of them. To his surprise almost everyone was dressed up as someone historical (he was pretty sure he saw Lincoln dressed as Abraham Lincoln; hilarious.

“Surprise!” All of them shouted in unison, startling Bellamy who looked like a deer in the headlights. “Happy birthday, Bell!” She said, hugging him tightly around his middle. “I know you love history, so I did a little something.” She gestured around them.

Oh, yeah. His 24th birthday fell on December 29th and he’s totally forgotten, so the usual. 

“Not gonna lie, I only agreed to this, because it meant there would be a party.” Murphy said, clapping him on the shoulder — he was wearing a spider man costume, with… cat ears? “Happy birthday, man.”

“When did spider man become a historical figure?” Bellamy asked, and Murphy frowned.

“He’s an icon, and that’s all that matters.” Murphy answered stubbornly, crossing his arms on his chest.

Some people that he only saw in his class went up to him, hugging him or even kissing his cheeks (mostly girls) and saying the usual, about wishing him good health and fortune, so typical. Bree even showed up unannounced, wearing a skimpy ‘renaissance’ dress, but he didn’t judge.

“Bell! I haven’t seen you in the past few months?” She whined, pushing her chest towards him, with a pouting look on her face — he smiled awkwardly, moving back a little.

“I was busy, with graduating and all that.” He shrugged, and she shook her head.

“You always had time for me.” She wrapped her hands around his middle, just like Clarke did — the blonde that he actually wanted to be this close with in the moment. Not Bree. “I’ve heard there’s a free room upstairs, wanna get your birthday present?” She winked, and this time, it was his turn to shake his head.

“I’m with someone.” Bellamy blurted out, pushing her away from her. Bree shook her head, not believing him.

“The famous Bellamy Blake is with someone?” She scoffed, not getting the hint and moving forward. The ari seemed thick with tension on his side — all of what she was saying happened back in freshman year of college, now he was a senior. He didn’t know whether Bree was this delusional to think a person doesn’t change in the span of four years, or if she didn’t realized how long it has been since he was with her in a bed.

“Yeah.” He said. “Go to Lincoln. He always has place for another girl in his bed.” He remarked, turning away from her before he could see her shocked and angry face, moving to the kitchen, where he expected Murphy to be.

Turns out Murphy wasn’t there, instead he was met with Clarke talking to Lincoln, both of them looking like they were getting along surprisingly — he could only hope that Lincoln wouldn’t try anything on her, because bro code, and all of that.

Frat boy tradition, Bellamy was reminded with, when the two word ‘bro code’ even came to his mind, as if he was some possessive asshole, who had some kind of power over the blonde, which no, he didn’t, in the slightest — she wasn’t even his to begin with.

“Bellamy, hey.” Lincoln waved with his solo red cup at him. Clarke turned around seeing him with an easy smile on her face, gesturing for him to come to them.

“Hi, Bell.” She answered softly, when came to stand in front of her, leaning on the counter top. “We were just talking about you.” She nodded to Lincoln.

“Yeah? What about me?” He asked curiously.

“Oh, you know.” Lincoln said. “Just about your freshman year of college, and how much of an ‘party animal’ you were.” He smirked.

“I wasn’t so far off from my comment about you looking like a guy who was surrounded by girls at every party.” Clarke piped in, chuckling to herself.

He turned beat red, too scared to ask about the things Lincoln said to her about him — it wasn’t that he was ashamed (well kind of) of what he’s been doing - there was a threesome once, drunken hookups with random girls and a guy once, at a party, but that was just his coping mechanism at that point in his life, and he didn’t know better.

“Well, it was almost four years ago.” He replied. “Now I’m ready to marry someone and have five kids.”

“Sure.” Lincoln said, the smirk on his face seemed to never leave. “I’m gonna head out, early morning tomorrow.”

“Since when has that stopped you?” He asked.

“I’m changing my ways, Blake.” He shouted, the music seemed to up its volume. “Happy Birthday, dude.” Bellamy nodded, watching his friend leave. 

He could hear the music growing louder, the house felt like it was going to fall apart any minute — he regretted listening to Clarke and dressing up as some Greek God; he felt as if his dick was going to be exposed any minute by the flimsy white robe.

“Enjoying yourself?” Clarke asked, raising her right eyebrow at him in question.

“Sure.” He said, smiling lightly down at her — damn, he sometimes forgot how small she was. “Bree was trying to get into my pants, but other than that, everything’s fine.” 

Clarke made a humming noise, looking away from him for a second; her lips put into a tight line. “Well, why aren’t you with her?” She asked, her voice clipped and sharp.

Bellamy frowned in confusion. “Wasn’t interested in her. I’m not the one nightstand kind of guy anymore, I guess.” He exclaimed, breathing out. “Is something wrong?” He asked.

“Nope.” She replied quickly, with an emphasize on the ‘p’. “Everything is fine.”

“I know you, Princess.” He said, adding the old nickname. If he knew one thing, it was that Clarke was the most stubborn person he knew, but that wasn’t going to let it down, when he knew something was not right.

“I’m just tired and irritated by pre-med. Rethinking my life decisions as we speak.” She sighed, letting her head drop to the back, leaning on the wall. “Go enjoy your party, Bell.” She prodded, pushing him away from her slowly, smiling lazily up at him.

“I prefer being here with you.” He said, moving forward to hug her.

She was hesitant at first. It wasn’t something they did often, almost never he could say. After a moment, Clarke loosened up, wrapping her hands around his shoulders, the feeling of comfort overtook Bellamy; he could feel Clarke smile against his shoulder, wrapping his hands around her tighter. He heard Clarke say something to him, but he didn’t get it, because of the loud music and people shouting around. 

“What did you say?” He asked, pulling away to take a look at her, but not quite letting go of her. Clarke moved closer, their faces inches away from each other.

“I said.” She stopped, looking up at him. “You’re many things, but I didn’t know you were soft too.” She giggled. He chuckled, grinning down at her, his hands wrapping tighter around her.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He remarked, and she nodded. “But we’ve got time.” She nodded again.

“Yeah.” Her voice was quieter.

“Yeah.” He said too. He didn’t stop moving his face closer to her, when he saw she wasn’t stepping back — their noses were touching, when he made the decision to close the gap between them, his mouth on her soft, plump and pink lips.

This time it wasn’t a surprise, it was something of a long-awaited happening — something natural. He couldn’t stop, but feel the butterflies flutter in his stomach, and the feeling of comfort when her arms tightened around his shoulder, one of them moving to his hair.

He then felt Clarke pull back sharply, he felt so dazed that it was up until she pushed him away from her, was when he realized how distraught she looked — something dropping in his stomach; he made another mistake.

“We have time, right?” She asked nervously, biting her lower lip. He looked up at her, only to see curiosity and anxiety written all over her face — he could feel the nerves building up inside him too, so he didn’t blame her.

He nodded. “Yeah, of course.” Bellamy answered; the disappointed seeping into his response that he couldn’t actually help, but sigh and drop his look from her face — this was the second time this has happened. 

Them kissing.

It felt amazing, something that he never felt, but he couldn’t just kiss her if she didn’t want to — and from his point of view, she didn’t.

As if she was reading his thoughts, she said. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but…”

“Yeah?”

She sighed, closing her eyes for a moment, then opening them up again, looking straight into his. “What is this, Bell? What are we doing?” She asked helplessly, looking lost and tired.

“We kissed.” He stated, and she nodded, probably fighting back to roll her eyes at the obvious. “Um, it felt nice.” More than nice. “At least for me, it was something I’ve wanted to do again, since — since that last kiss.”

Clarke didn’t say anything for a second, the longest second he knew — because the next thing he knew he sighed, pulling away — this wasn’t something she wanted, even though she said she did; he wasn’t going to push her into something she wasn’t ready for, even if it hurt.

Suddenly he felt her mutter something, grabbing his wrist back to her, the other hand placed on the back of his neck — pulling him into another kiss.

He wasn’t expecting that one, so being his usual self, he didn’t respond at first — the warm feeling of her plump, rosy lips on his was incredible, so he didn’t waste another second to return it. Clarke let out a small whimper, which just spurred him even more.

With his both hands, he grabbed her by the waist pulling her closer to him, so their bodies where flushed against each other — their mouths not leaving one another for a second, he could feel the corners of his lips turn upwards, making the kiss sloppier. The two of them didn’t seem to care enough to stop. He could still hear obnoxious people moving through the kitchen, laughing and shouting, but he didn’t budge for a second.

What stopped them from kissing, was in fact the guy who wanted them together the most — John fucking Murphy.

“Well, well, well.” He exclaimed, smirking. “I don’t want to ruin your moment, but… I said so!” He shouted, clasping his hands like a kid who just got a new toy from his parents — Bellamy shot him a deathly glare, silently pleading for him to get the fuck away from them.

“Shut up, Murphy.” Clarke said, grabbing his face with both of her hands, and smashing their lips together — the kiss hot, sloppy, but perfect at the same time. He grabbed her again, ignoring their friends’ protests and comments. 

He finally got the girl.

“Wanna get out of here?” He asked, praying to God she would say yes. Thankfully she nodded excitedly, looking at his lips. He grasped her hand and the two of them moved to the exit of the house together. He didn’t seem to think about saying anything to Murphy about them leaving his birthday party, but he was sure his friend probably already knew where they would be (if the make out session was anything to go by).

Of course, as his luck seemed to run out, it couldn’t have been that easy and simple to go back to her or his apartment — they stumbled upon, or rather Finn Collins pushed him hard from the back, making him hit the wall heavily.

“So this is your new boy toy, huh?” He screamed at Clarke, the slur in his voice standing out. “i gotta say, you always went for the guys with issues… a fuck up like you always searches for a guy equally fucked up, is that it?” He scoffed.

“Finn, calm down.” He heard Clarke say as he stood up slowly, not to make Finn snap again, he wasn’t paying any attention to him at the moment; his body turned to Clarke. 

“Stop, just stop.” He held up his hands, to silence her. “I slept with another chick because you didn’t want to put out, which was so fucking strange as you are such a fucked up slu—“

Bellamy fist connected with Finn’s cheek, he grabbed him by the shirt. Finn’s punches were uncoordinated, never actually hitting him. “You wanna fucking repeat that, buddy?” Bellamy growled, pinning him to the wall. Finn didn’t say anything, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open in shock — he wasn’t expecting him to actually punch him. “Listen to me now.” Bellamy snapped, his voice sharp. “You won’t ever come near her, you won’t talk to her, you won’t do as fucking be in the same room as her, got it?”

Finn nodded.

“Because if I see you near her, I will fucking come for you.” He pushed him aside, Finn’s body slowly sliding to the floor, he couldn’t contain his anger, so he punched the wall in front of him. Bellamy didn’t realize the music stopped, and that there was circle of people around them, looking both terrified and curious. “There’s nothing to see here.” He shouted, and the group dispersed, the music slowly turned back to its normal volume, leaving an unconscious Finn on the floor, Clarke and him alone in the hallway. When he looked back at Clarke, afraid to see the expression on her face from his outburst, now that the adrenaline and tension went down a couple notches, he saw her worried look, not at Finn, but at his fists.

“Let me check those.” She whispered, her voice shaky. “There’s a cut on your right hand, let me see that.” She prodded, but he still didn’t budge — he kept looking for any sign of fear in her, but there wasn’t any; she was shocked and worried, but not scared. When she realized she wasn’t going anywhere with her pleas to see his hand, she sighed. “At least let’s go back to your apartment, okay?” She asked.

“Okay.” He whispered, going after her.

The silence between them in the car was unbearable — he wished he could read her, as he almost always knew how, but this was just like the time they went back from Thanksgiving, her not giving him any sign of distress, but him knowing there’s something wrong.

“I’m sorry.” He said, when they found themselves standing in front of his building — at least an apology would do something, make her say anything to him.

“For what?” She asked after a while, he looked down at his bloody knuckles; shit, he really got Finn good from the looks of his hands. “You protected me. In an unnecessarily and inconvenient way, but still.”

When they got inside of his apartment, Bellamy asked her another question.

“You’re not mad?”

She shrugged, shaking her head slightly. “I’m mad that you thought fighting my ex was the best way to go, and getting yourself hurt in the process, but… I’m not mad that you’re the first guy that didn’t hesitate to protect me.” The two of them sat on the sofa. “Now, please let me check up on your hands, because I will go crazy just by looking at them.”

He gave her a small smile. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” He said, but proceeded to give her his right hand to inspect. She carefully looked at the small cut on his knuckles, then quickly went to the kitchen and returned with a wet towel, washing his hands of the blood. “Thanks.” He said, when she was done.

“No problem.”

He nodded to himself, waiting for her to say anything next, but that moment never coming. “I can be a little bit overprotective sometimes.” He said lamely.

“No shit.” She whispered, and the both of them chuckled.

“It’s just…” he brushed his hair with his fingers nervously. “Do you remember when you talked about your eating disorder to me.” She nodded, her face filled with confusion. “Uh, the way I am, overprotective, overbearing or basically possessive sometimes is because of my sister and mother.” He said.

“I didn’t know you had a sister.” She replied.

“You didn’t know, because she doesn’t want me to be in her life, well not mostly.” He sighed. “I didn’t grow up in a good neighborhood, my whole life from the time I was a kid was to be dedicated to make my sister’s life better. My sister, my responsibility.” He whispered at the end, remembering his mother’s words to him, when Octavia was born. “I was sixteen when I first got a job, my mom was almost never at home, I never knew where or with who she was, the only person that was a constant in the house was Octavia. She was troubled, she had anger issues, getting into fights at school. At first I didn’t think anything of it, because I had similar problems like her, maybe not as intense, but still.” He looked up at Clarke, only to see her already looking up at him.

“Octavia was all I had. I wasn’t doing well in school, because of my jobs, and my sister getting angrier everyday. It all went even more to shit, when I found my mother in her room, hanging by a rope around her neck.” Clarke’s sharp breath was her only response. “Octavia got even angrier, lashing out on me in the every way she could, mentally and physically. That house wasn’t my home anymore, it was a nightmare. I myself got into a wrong crowd in the first year of college after somehow getting accepted here. I started sleeping around a lot, partying till I was black out drunk, waking up in strange places. Octavia moved away at seventeen I think? I was worried as fuck, don’t get me wrong, but I focused on getting my life back together. I rented out this place, it wasn’t a lot, but it would be enough for me and her, so I got in contact with her, telling her everything about my work at the bar, and classes and that I got an apartment for the two of us… I didn’t realize she wasn’t listening to me the whole time, her only response that she was fine where she was, and that I needed to let her go, because without her overprotective brother in her life, it was so much better.” He said, his hands starting to shake. “Now she just sends me pictures of the places she’s in, that was my only wish; to know she’s well and alive.”

The silence between them stretched out, so when he felt her hand touch his forearm he startled.

“Bellamy, listen to me.” She whispered, her voice strong as it always was most of the time. “It’s not your fault that she left you, you did nothing wrong by raising her the way you did. You’re the most selfless and caring person I know, and if that was too much for her, then I really don’t know what she’s looking for, because being around has made my life so much better. It’s Octavia’s fault that she doesn’t see that. She doesn’t deserve you.”

He let out a silent sob, the tears spilling down his cheeks. “I- I just wanted you to know, that if I’m being overbearing or too much, please tell me to stop.” He stuttered. “You’re so important to me, I don’t want to lose you like I lost them.”

“You’re not going to, Bellamy.” She replied. When he didn’t say anything, she sat closer to him, wrapping both of her arms around him, he leaned into her, his head resting on her collarbone. “You’re never going to lose me. You’re one of the best things that happened to me. I need you.”

“And I need you.” He whispered, her arms pulling him even closer to her. They stayed in that position for what seemed a couple of minutes, but was surely longer than that. He couldn’t place why he was feeling so safe in her arms, how even though she was so much smaller than him, her frame embraced him.

“Bell.” She said, after pulling back slightly to look at his face — her look full of adoration but also worry. He gave her a lopsided smile, and she chuckled at his sheepish expression. “I just - I don’t want you to feel obligated in any way, that you need to kiss me, or do anything more with me, just so I won’t leave you. Because I won’t.”

His smile fell from his face, his chest starting to ache slightly. “Why would I do that?” He asked.

“You’re my best friend, and I want to be in your life, as long as you’ll have me.” She said, taking a deep breath after. Deep down he knew that, Bellamy kept telling himself — he knew that he was in some way important to her, but hearing it from her lips made it real, and he wasn’t opposed to that.

“I think I’m in love with you.” He confessed quickly, in the rush of the moment, not thinking before saying it. Clarke’s eyes widened in surprise, and he was about to start beating himself about telling her too soon, when they really didn’t even talk whether it was a relationship or not. He then saw her smile slightly, her cheeks reddening slightly too.

Then her expression fell.

“I-“ she looked away, as if she was embarrassed about something. “I like you, in a non-platonic way… I like you so fucking much, Bellamy.” She said carefully. “And I feel the same as you do, but… I -“

“You don’t need to say it.” He assured quickly, her telling him that she liked him romantically was enough for him— Bellamy didn’t care whether she said it, or not.

She nodded, kissing him on the lips softly, so softly he felt as if their lips barely touched. Bellamy deepened the kiss, tangling his fingers into her hair, pulling her closer. The position wasn’t comfortable, with him almost laying on her, her head turned in a uneasy way, he sat back on the couch, bringing her with him, sitting her on his lap.

Clarke moaned when his tongue found hers, he roughly grabbed her hips, growling when she rolled them into his seductively. “Clarke.” He whispered, a plea — she smirked, smashing their lips together again, grinding against him. 

He didn’t realize when his costume was thrown aside, leaving him in black boxers, and her still fully clothed, which was probably a crime itself. “Why are you still dressed?” He asked, almost out of breath from the intense make out session. Clarke shrugged, looking down at him.

“I don’t know…” she dragged out, this time fully smirking at him. He turned them around, with her back laying on the couch, and him on top of her, between her legs who her hugging his thighs. But when he slowly started to undress her, her expression turned from a seductive, to a nervous one. 

“Is something wrong?” He asked, and she shook her head, scoffing quietly, probably to herself. “Hey, talk to me.” He stopped unbuttoning her shirt, and she finally looked up at him.

“It’s just—“ she broke off, shaking her head. “The last time I was with someone, it was Finn.” 

“You know I’m nothing like him.” He quickly replied, and she shook her head again.

“No, it’s not that. I know you.”

“Then what—“

“He, um, made some comments about my body.” She answered quickly, her skin flushing. “That I was too skinny, like a stick.” Clarke scoffed. “And I know how I looked back then; like someone could literally break me in half if they tried.”

“You’re healthy, Clarke. That’s what matters.” He assured, and she nodded.

“I’ve put on some weight, but I still— I still don’t feel like I’m healthy enough.” She confessed, her voice shaky. “I’ve never liked my body, and I don’t want to ruin it for you.”

“Ruin what?” He asked, he was one step from expressing how beautiful she was, how her body in his eyes was perfect.

“Our first time.” She whispered — he shook his head immediately, she wouldn’t ruing anything for him, never her.

“Clarke, listen to me.” His hands found both of her cheeks, turning her head to look at him. “You’re gorgeous, you’re healthy, I’ve never known anyone even as half beautiful as you in the past.” He whispered. “I’m gonna take care of you, Princess.” 

He heard her take a sharp breath— smirking in response, Bellamy kissed her passionately on the lips, then trailed his kisses to her cheek, her jaw, her throat and down her chest, unbuttoning every button slowly; it was almost torture for the both of them — knowing that she wanted him as much in this moment as he wanted her. 

Still, that didn’t stop the teasing on both sides — Bellamy trailing his kisses slowly lower, and Clarke massaging his hair gently, with quick and sharp, strong grips from time to time. “Bellamy…” she whispered weakly, when he finally started pulling down her panties.

He was absorbed with the tangy but also sweet smell, giving her small kisses on either sides of her thighs before licking into her — Clarke moaned loudly, her grip on his hair getting stronger with every second he was down here.

“You taste so good, baby.” Bellamy whispered, turning to take a look at her face; she looked blissed, her cheeks slightly red, and her chest moving up and down from the sharp breaths she took every minute.

“Come on, Bell.” She prodded, getting annoyed with his patience — Bellamy smirked once again, and put his mouth to use, his hands - who her holding her thighs in place - moved to her clit, making her whimper. She moved her hips against his mouth, wanting more.

He didn’t waste anytime, passionately licking into her, with his right hand pinching her clit, when he knew by the louder moans, and pleas falling from her mouth, that she was so close. 

She let out a long moan and shuddered against him — he then turned to his boxers, his hard on straining uncomfortably against them; Bellamy shook them off in a second, awkwardly standing up from the bed, but before he returned he took a look at her.

Clarke wasn’t looking at him, quite the opposite, she had her eyes closed and her mouth slightly opened — he couldn’t find the right words to describe the sight in front of him; beautiful wasn’t enough to describe that. She was and looked majestic, like something out of this world, that no one deserved.

Bellamy then realized that they were actually doing this, no hiding from each other, or backing off when things got too hard — they were honest with each other, honest to the point where he felt as if he could tell her everything, and he almost did, he confessed his terrible childhood to her, and she didn’t judge him for it. The only thing left was to tell her how deeply he was in love with her, yet, the words seemed to be stuck in the back of his head, never actually being able to tell them to her, at least not yet.

“You coming back or what?” Clarke asked, raising her eyebrow at him standing there — catching him admiring her.

“Yeah.” He kneeled on the bed first, but she stopped him from getting on top of her. Instead, she let him fall onto the bed on his back, and she crawled down — the thought of her in front of him, on her knees with his dick in her mouth was something he fantasized about quite often. But now he had other desires stronger than that.

“I want to be inside you.” He said to her, after pulling her back slightly. She nodded understanding, her expression switching from a confused, even hurt to a heated one. He grabbed her by her hips, pulling her into his lap — for a moment they took a second to just look at each other, and then their lips crashed.

He could feel her clit bumping into his hard cock every time, he grabbed her tighter to be closer to her, he needed for her to be as close she could. They pulled away, he quickly got a condom which Murphy must’ve thankfully put it in his cupboard, and with the help of her hands on his shoulders, and his hands on her hips she sunk down on him.

He grunted, closing his eyes, and she whimpered, he couldn’t tell if it was from pleasure or from hurt — maybe even both. He could feel her clench slightly and then relax. “Does is hurt?” He asked, when she stopped moving for a second.

“No, yes. It’s just so big.” She whispered, and then moved deeper into him. “But it’s so good, I can’t get enough of it.” 

He moaned this time, her words being too much for him — this could end in seconds if she was going to talk like that to him, he wouldn’t last. He lifted her hips, and she moaned an “yes!” Then going deeper again.

They started moving together in rhythm, when the thrusts started getting harder and quicker, her laid his head on her shoulder, and she laid her head on his. She was so tight, it was heaven for him, and the rolls of her hips into his were sinfully amazing.

“Yeah, baby, just like that.” He growled, when she grabbed his shoulder harder, and driving into him even quicker. He wouldn’t last long, and by the way she didn’t seem to say a full sentence, only oh, yes’s, Bell’s and fuck’s she was close too. “You like being on top, huh.” He said, spurring her on, she nodded against his head. “Fuck me, Clarke.” He growled, the hold on her hips getting stronger, it would leave a bruise he was sure of it, and some sick, twisted part of him liked the idea of her being marked by him.

“Marked, huh.” She whimpered, but her voice was teasing, he cursed when he realized he said that out loud, but the next thing he saw was her shuddering against him, just like she did when he went down on her couple minutes ago, this time accompanied with even louder moans and whimpers. He couldn’t wait, so he closed his eyes and with a moan he came.

He laid back, and with him she went to lay on his right side, her head laying on his chest — he didn’t have the energy to cover them with something even as a blanket, he wished the bliss he was living in would last forever.

“I’m sorry, about the marking comment.” He said quietly after a couple of minutes, when their breaths seemed to calm down. “I really got carried away.”

“It’s alright.” She said, looking up at him, kissing him. “It is a turn on, if I’m going to be honest with you.” She added after a moment, hiding her face in his chest.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He let out a sigh, and chuckled. “Then I guess I’m gonna start calling you mine. How about that?”

“I was yours since the time you thought that going with me on Thanksgiving to my family when we barely knew each other was a good idea.” She smirked, and he chuckled at the memory — it seemed to long ago, but in reality it was just a couple of months.

“Will you stay?” He asked hopefully — he knew the answer to that already, but he needed to know for sure.

“Of course.” She whispered.

That night he slept with no worries or insecurities on his mind — he knew they would come, as they always did, but he wanted to take pleasure in this moment as they weren’t a problem for now. He knew there was going to be a lot to get through if they wanted all of this to work, but somehow, he was sure they would go through them together this time.

Sleep took over him quickly after that.

This time it was a dreamless night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys don't even know how hard it was to write smut, even though I've read so many dirty fics, it was a struggle for me, but i did it, so... yeah?
> 
> Anyways, I hope you liked this chapter! just one more chapter to go

**Author's Note:**

> HIIIIII LOVES<3 this chapter was a bit of information about both Clarke and Bellamy, I was thinking if i should kind of say their stories throughout the fic, but decided otherwise. I think it's better if y'all know the story, because there are going to be more information about both of them, and if i didn't say what mental health issues they had i think it would just become messy and confusing for a lot of readers. Anyways, I hoped you liked the first chapter, i think it's not going to have more than 10 chapters, because im just not patient enough to continue a fic longer than that :)))))))


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